Ron was a Leading Cooks Mate on HMS Tipperary the flagship of the 4th destroyer flotilla at Jutland. In the gloom and darkness at app. 23:20 hours on the 31 May 1916 the flotilla almost literally ran into the enemy and attacked with torpedoes. Tipperary was destroyed and sunk in the early hours of the 1st June by the secondary guns of the SMS Westfalen. Ron Downer was one of the 185 (of 197) who perished. His descendants in Fareham and the UK still mourn his loss.

Bruce Baker-Johnson