Communication Vessels

The Chaplain of the cruiser Warrior was Edward Robert Bredin.  The Warrior came under heavy fire and was badly stricken and turned away pouring smoke.  Mercifully she was accidentally screened from the German fire by the battleship Warspite, which had received damage which rendered her unmanageable for a time and caused her to circle drawing on herself fire which would have ended the Warrior’s existence.  The engine rooms of the Warrior had been flooded through the damage she had received, and after she was brought out of action she was taken in tow by the seaplane carrier Engadine.   The weather became bad, and as it was feared the Warrior might sink the crew was taken off the following morning.  She is believed to have sunk shortly afterwards.

Bredin, who died on March 28^th 1977 at the age of 93, described in January 1972 his last moments on board.

I was the only officer who saved anything from the Warrior.  I was determined, and I succeeded, in saving the holy vessels I always kept in my cabin.   On the morning of 1^st June 1916 the order to abandon ship was given, so I dashed down to the half-deck (the quarter-deck and all the ladders etc. were wrecked).  My cabin was wrecked but the box containing the holy vessels was intact. I seized the box, climbed up the starboard gangway ladder and passed the box across the gangway leading to the rescue ship HMS Engadine.’

Reverend Bredin then devoted all his efforts to attending to the wounded and burying the dead, and was later commended by Captain V.B. Molteno, his Commanding Officer.  The Admiralty gave permission for Reverend Bredin to retain the vessels for his own use.  He presented these vessels to HMS Warrior, an aircraft carrier after the Second World War.  Upon Warrior being sold to Argentina in 1958 the vessels were transferred to the chapel at Northwood HQ.