Name
Noel Grant
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
06/03/1920
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Rear Admiral
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Individual Memorial Church of St Nicholas, Elstree
Pre War
Born in Kensington, Noel Grant gained five months' time on passing out of Britannia in December 1883. His early career had him serving in Northumberland, Bacchante and Calypso.
In September 1888, he went to Excellent for exams, emerging with a second-class certificate in torpedoes in May 1889. He was then loaned to T.B. 52 from 18 July until she paid off on 3 September, 1889. He then went to the Mediterranean, first spending a year in Fearless, from which he produced a useful report on fortifications in Algiers. He was then appointed to Edinburgh on 1 December 1891. His time in her was abbreviated when he was invalided on 29 August, presumably with Mediterranean Fever.
Grant was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on 1 October, 1891 before he was found fit on 4 January, 1892 and received an appointment to Jackal in the Home Fleet as her navigating officer. The rest of the 1890s would be a succession of appointments in this role, taking him to China, Portsmouth and North America before he was again hazarded in Mediterranean climes, being placed in Andromeda on 5 September 1899 and then Ramillies in 1902.[2]
Grant was promoted to the rank of Commander dated 31 December, 1902 and re-appointed in Ramillies.
Grant was promoted to the rank of Captain on 31 December, 1908.
On 8 February, 1910, he was made captain of the second class protected cruiser Leander. Grant became Captain (D) of the Fifth Destroyer Flotilla on 20 December, 1910.
He served as captain of the battleship Irresistible for a little over a year, beginning his command in March 1913.
Wartime Service
Within a few weeks of the outbreak of the First World War the British public were cheering a famous victory at sea, thanks to a Royal Navy captain from Elstree. The battle won by Captain Noel Grant on September 14, 1914, attracted particular interest because it involved two cruise liners which had been adapted for war service.
Captain Grant was in command of HMS Carmania, a former Cunard luxury liner, when it came up against a German ship, the Cap Trafalgar, off the coast of Brazil.
His ship took a total of 79 hits from shells and was badly damaged in the hour-long battle, but it succeeded in sinking the German vessel.
The Carmania had been launched by the Cunard Line in 1905, at a time when British and German companies were competing to build the fastest Atlantic cruise liner. When Britain entered the war, on August 4, 1914, the ship, which was Cunard's largest, was requisitioned and fitted with eight four-inch guns.
He was appointed in command of the armoured cruiser Cochrane on 30 June, 1915.
Grant was admitted to Chatham Naval Hospital with a stomach disease on 19 January, 1917.
In January, 1918, Grant was appointed as Senior Naval Officer, Bristol Channel. On 7 June, he was moved to be S.N.O., Cardiff. In late July, he was judged fit only for shore service.[8]
Acknowledgments
http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/tfs/index.php/Noel_Grant, Jonty Wild, https://www.borehamwoodtimes.co.uk/news/222278.big-liners-shoot-it-out/ - writer Mark Foy
