Current Information:

Age-25

12, Queen's Head Alley, Wapping

Leytonstone (St Patrick's) RC Cemetery

On the night of 20/21 April 1917 there was a raid by German Zeebrugge-based destroyers on Dover. Making their way inside the Dover barrage they opened fire on the town just before midnight and then headed out into the Channel to attack any shipping they might meet. However, they came across two Royal Navy destroyers, HMS Broke (pronounced Brook) and HMS Swift. HMS Broke launched a torpedo and then rammed one of the German vessels. The two ships became locked together and the crew of HMS Broke found themselves in some desperate hand to hand fighting as the German sailors tried to board her. Breaking free at last the ship was hit by the guns of two other enemy destroyers at point blank range as they sailed past but despite this and with boiler-rooms badly damaged, her bridge on fire and decks swept with shellfire she still turned back to finish off two crippled German vessels, the one that had been rammed and another that had been hit by a torpedo. They both opened fire but HMS Broke replied and silenced them before her engines gave up and she began drifting towards the stricken German destroyers. By now other Royal Naval vessels had left Dover and when they reached HMS Broke about 1.15am they pulled her clear and towed her back to Dover. Forty of her crew had been killed or wounded. Among those who did not survive was Daniel Brian.