About me

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My connection to the story of HMS India is a personal one.  Engine Room Artificer Richard Arnold Clarke is my husband’s grandfather.  Arnold signed up for duty for World War 1 on 5th September 1914 thinking that he would be trained and sent to the front but his training in engineering meant that he was sent to train for the navy to work in ships engine rooms.

It was some of Arnold’s artwork that led to my finding out about his experience on HMS India.  On the wall of my father-in-law’s study there were four small sections of birch tree trunk that had been hand painted.  One had 1916 written across the top with a flag and then a painting of snow-covered mountains with Jørstadmoen, Norway and ERC written beneath.  Another had a hand painted crest with the words Moni Soit Qui Mal Y Pense written in the crest.  The third had a caricature very much in the style of Punch and is labelled 1916.  The final one has ‘A memento from Norway’ inscribed on with flags and an anchor.  These four pieces of art led to me being told the story of Arnold being on a ship that was torpedoed in WW1 and him consequently being interned as a prisoner of war for over three years.

In the past few years, due to my interest in family history,  I have become the family archivist for the collection amassed by my husband’s great aunts – Arnold’s sisters.  In this vast collection were a small pile of letters written by Arnold whilst in internment.  They make for heart-breaking reading as they were written by a young man deprived of his freedom and desperate to go home.

On one of my father-in-law’s visits to London, the two of us decided to take a trip to the National Archives to look at the files pertaining to HMS India.  Richard (my father-in-law) had long harboured an interest in HMS India and had wondered on what his father had experienced in the torpedo attack and in the camp.  It was something that Arnold never spoke of.  We found more than we had expected at the archives and on subsequent visits I found even more files.  Our interest was further piqued when Richard found that some of his father’s letters were being sold online on eBay and through other auction sites.  We had no idea how the letters had left the family archives and why they would create such an interest. 

It has always surprised me that the story of HMS India and her men is not better known.  I understand that there were many boats torpedoed in WW1 but there were not many incidences of men being interned in Scandinavian countries.  I am fascinated by the subject and want to get the story told.  I think more people should know!  The past two and a half years have seen me researching and writing and I have now completed a book based on Arnold’s letters, my research, and the stories shared with me by descendants of the officers and crew of HMS India. The book, titled  A Bare Chronicle of Existence, has now been released and is available on order from most bookshops.  See the home page of this website for more details,