Lieutenant Henry Walter Edward HEARN RN
HMS Pheasant Royal Navy

Date of birth: 6th August 1894
Date of death: 1st March 1917

Killed in action aged 22
Commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial Panel 20
He was born on the 6th of August 1894 the second son of Sir Walter Risley Hearn KBE, the British Consul in Paris, and Edith Gertrude of 7 Durward House, Kensington Court in London.

He was educated at the Junior King’s School from January 1905 to July 1907 and at the naval training school HMS “Conway” from where he entered the Royal Naval College Dartmouth on the 15th of May 1909. While he was at Dartmouth he became a good friend of the Prince of Wales.

He was appointed as a Midshipman in the Royal Navy on the 15th of January 1912 and was posted to the battle cruiser HMS “Indefatigable” on the same day, serving with her until November 1914. On the 15th of May 1914 he was promoted to Acting Sub Lieutenant and to Sub Lieutenant on the 28th of February 1915. On the 2nd of December 1914 he joined the Beagle Class destroyer HMS "Grasshopper", serving with her until the 22nd of September 1916. He was promoted to Lieutenant on the 15th of September 1916 and was posted to the newly commissioned M Class destroyer HMS "Pheasant" on the 17th of November 1916.

At 5.30am on the 1st of March 1917 HMS “Pheasant”, under command of Lieutenant Hubert William Douglas Griffith RN, left her moorings at Scapa Flow for the “Hoy Patrol”, the protection of the western part of the anchorage. They were patrolling some eighty five miles off Hoy when she struck a floating mine. At 6.10am two trawlers who were nearby reported an explosion with black smoke being observed to their north west. One of the trawlers, the “Grouse”, set off to find the source of the blast which was thought to have occurred some two to five miles from their position but when they arrived in the area they found nothing. An hour later a routine trawler sweep for mines found the body of Midshipman Reginald Alexander Cotter RNR of HMS Pheasant floating in two lifebelts and they brought his body on board. Another body sank out of reach of the trawler’s crew before it could be recovered. The entire crew of eighty nine officers and men had been lost during the sinking.

A subsequent inquiry found that the most likely cause of the loss of the ship was due to a British mine, which had drifted free from the Whiten Bank Field.

He is commemorated on the war memorial at HMS Conway.

His medals were sold at auction in May 2011.
Junior King's School

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