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Letters
Robert M. Leonard, was a Royal Navy Reserve engineering officer who went on active duty in the UK at the beginning of WWI Mr. Gregory, I stumbled on your site re Hogue, Aboukir and Cressy. My grandfather, Robert M. Leonard, was a Royal Navy Reserve engineering officer who went on active duty in the UK at the beginning of WWI, I believe along with his shipmate and future brother in law, Alan Mussared (father of the late RAN Rear Adm. Bryn Mussared). Leonard was born in NZ. Mussared was Australian, born in Adelaide I believe. Their ship was in London at the time. I barely knew my grandfather, but it was passed on that he spoke about being sunk three times in one day. Nobody bothered to get the details. My mother only knew he wasn't at Jutland, and that he made an unsuccessful run to Archangel to pick up the Czar. I have a postcard from him aboard HMS Queen Victoria in 1918. That's it. A friend in the UK who is familiar with military records has said he can't find any papers on my grandfather's service. I wonder if you have seen any crew lists or survivor lists for Hogue, Aboukir or Cressy and if Leonard or Mussared appear on them. Thanks,
Interesting about Bryn's Father, I served him in Canberra, when we were sunk at Savo in August 1942, he was of course wounded. Small world sometimes.
Small world indeed. Bryn Mussared you served with was the former R Adm I was refering to. My mother's cousin. He ended up as commandant of Flinders Academy and I believe his son is an RAN officer today. My brother Simon, who oved back to Australia 25 yrs ago, met the son when he was a captain about 0 years ago. I met the elder Bryn, who served in WWII, when I was a kid. I hought they had said he was aboard Canberra, but they never talked about hat. I'd be glad to hear about it. My own combat experience as I mentioned was in Iraq. Our company was ucky and only suffered a couple wounded in the invasion despite a period of easy combat. Among approximately 30 embedded press attached to 2nd Brigade of the 3rd ID, however, there were three killed in action and a fourth dead of an embolism from being cramped in the tracks. I expected to be killed in the assault on Baghdad as we expected it to be much worse than it proved to be. Ironically, two of the KIA reporters had opted not to go on that assault, but were killed by an anti-tank missile when the Iraqis attacked the rear. No such thing as a safe place in a place like that.
I liked the part about your gilded hat badge. Always terrible to read about deaths and the loss of one's ship I can only imagine is an added trauma. A few years back, driving up the road, I saw a car with a P.O.W. license plate and a USS Houston Association bumper sticker. I recognized what that meant and tracked the guy's plate, tracked him down for a news story on the 55th anniversary of the Feb 42 sinking. I surprised the heck out of him when I called up out of the blue. Houston as you may know was lost around the time HMAS Perth, I believe, was lost in the Sunda Strait. The Houston's crew made up the bulk of about 1000 Americans on the death railway. This guy put me in touch with a chief petty officer who survived HoustoIn's sinking, was sent from Java to Nagasaki, survived being torpedoed in a prison ship enroute, was sent from Nagasaki to work in a cola mine and FYI, my old man worked in the shipyard at Williamstown during the war. I vaguely recall he might have seen Bryn there at some point, knowing him via my mother from the neighborhood, but I'll have to check with him. Dad started there at 16 and after that was not allowed to enlist, being in a vital industry. His father apparently also had some influence on that situation, having already lost a son. Regarding my own project I've just finished a manuscript which I am farming around the agents. There has been a limited appetite among US publishers for embed books and the industry has been very tight in recent years. Its an uphill battle but I am patient. Jules |
