LIEUTENANT CHARLES LAWFORD DIVINE
ROYAL NAVAL RESERVE
20TH JANUARY 1918 AGE 30
BURIED: LANCASHIRE LANDING CEMETERY, TURKEY
'In deo confido': I trust in God. Although Charles Divine was married it was his mother Ellen who chose his inscription. Born Ellen Lawford, 'In deo confido' was her family motto.
To begin with, Charles Lawford Divine was a puzzle. Why, when he died on 20 January 1918, was he buried in Gallipoli? The British army had abandoned the place two years earlier, leaving it in enemy hands and didn't get back onto the peninsula until the war was over. The answer lies in the fact that he was killed in a naval engagement off the island of Imbros and in all probability was originally buried on one of the Aegean islands. After the war many of these graves were exhumed and the bodies gathered in and reburied in the larger cemeteries on Gallipoli.
On 20 January 1918 four naval vessels, HMS Tigris, Lizard, Raglan and M28, a naval shore bombardment vessel, were caught in Imbros harbour by two Turkish warships, the ex-German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the lightcruiser, the former SMS Breslau . Tigris and Lizard escaped but Raglan and M28 were sunk, the former with the loss of 130 lives, and M28 with the loss of 12 of her 69-man crew. The battle later turned against the Turkish ships and Allied ships were able to pick some of the survivors. Lieutenant Divine was rescued but died of his wounds later the same day.