Notes
William Thomas SYMS. Chief Stoker. 147253, (RFR/DEV/A/3036). H.M.S. "Indefatigable.", Royal Navy who died on 31 May 1916 Age 46
Son of Thomas and Mary Ann Syms, of St. Martins-by-Looe, Cornwall; husband of Elizabeth Mary Syms, of 12, Pembroke Terrace, Torpoint, Cornwall.
Remembered with Honour Plymouth Naval Memorial. and ‘Commemorated in perpetuity’ by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
HMS Indefatigable was sunk on 31 May 1916 during the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of the war. Part of Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty's Battlecruiser Fleet, she was hit several times in the first minutes of the "Run to the South", the opening phase of the battlecruiser action. Shells from the German battlecruiser Von der Tann caused an explosion ripping a hole in her hull, and a second explosion hurled large pieces of the ship 200 feet (60 m) in the air. Only two of the crew of 1,019 survived.