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A Son Killed in Each War
Ann Keen nee Scott Remembers
I know a great deal about Mr & Mrs Robert Scott's sons, even although one was killed twenty years before I was born and the other was killed when I was three years old. You see one was my Uncle Fred and the other was my Dad, Robert "Bob" Scott. My Granny, Margaret Humble Scott nee Elfert, kept their memories alive for me. In the days of large families my grandparents had only two sons.
Killed in Action WW1
Frederick Ernest who was born in 1894 was a great scouter. He was a member of the 19th Dunston Christ Church Boy Scouts and had the distinction of winning the Silver Wolf. This is the highest award a Scout can win and he was the first boy in the North of England to obtain this much-coveted honour. It was not until 1979 that anyone else in the Gateshead area was awarded this honour.
He served in the 1st (Northumberland) Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, in the First World War. He died on Thursday 24th October 1918 aged 24 and was buried with honour at Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension, Somme, France. [View Memorial on Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.]
Killed in Action WW2
Robert Norman was born in 1903 and served in the Merchant Navy, rising to the rank of Chief Engineer. He died on Wednesday 13th November 1940 aged 37 and was buried with honour at Swalwell (Garden House) Cemetery, Co Durham. [View Memorial on Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.]
I last saw my Father at Greenock, where his ship was in dry dock being fitted out against the magnetic mines laid by the Germans. His ship sailed for Falmouth where it was blown up by a different type of mine, which a German submarine had laid during the night.
My Granny hated the Germans. They killed both of her sons. The ironic part of this is that her Father, Christian Ernst Frederic Elfert, was a German who at the age of sixteen had run away to sea and ended up marrying Mary Francis Humble of North Shields.