Hidden below the Waves

Athol Davaar Lamont

Much can be written about my great grand father John Lamont’s children. He had after all some twelve in total between two spouses . I am now going to look at one whose story and appendages are quite incredible . Athol Davaar Lamont was the fourth child to the marriage with Isabell Nairn . His name indeed follows precedent - Athol taken from that area of Perthshire controlled by the powerful Murray Clan and whose Chieftain, the Duke of Athol, even to this day , is the only person in these isles to have a private army ! Davaar is a small island off Kintyre in Argyll at the mouth of Campbeltown Loch . Born in December 1891 in 4c Washington Street Glasgow , Athol was a school boy in the 1901 Census and now living at 20 Campbell Street in the Maryhill District of Glasgow .

It is understandable that Athol would in probability end up at sea bearing in mind his background . His paternal grandfather , Colin Lamont was a herring fisher and his maternal grand father Duncan Cameron was a merchant seaman. By 1911 the family had moved to Govan Glasgow the home of a variety of ship yards and ancillary industries. Athol was listed in the Census of that year as being an engineer in an engineering works . On war breaking out in 1914 , Athol enlisted in the Royal Navy as a sub mariner . He found himself based at Blyth in Northumberland which at that time was an important submarine base By the time the War was in its last stages , Athol had married a local girl , Jean Walker . The Royal Navy was developing a super sub which in size was well above the norm in service . Athol Lamont was appointed to serve on the J6 and on October 1918 , as the War drew to a close , it sailed out of Blyth Harbour into the North Sea.

This was the last Jean Lamont saw or heard of Athol . She received formal information that the J6 had been torpedoed and sunk . No further information was forthcoming . It was as if the powers that be , including the Navy itself , wished to draw a veil over the whole incident . Jean was fraught . She was pregnant with his child and in 1919 a male child was born . He was named after his deceased father - Athol Davaar Lamont . Jean remarried in the early 1920s and her new husband ,Joseph Walton , accepted young Athol as his own . Another child was born a half-brother to Athol . The Second World War brought trials and tribulation to families world wide . Young Athol signed up for military service and by genetic demand became a seaman . Athol served on the HMS Daring. He was killed in action aboard HMS Daring which was sunk by a German U boat .HMS Daring was D Class Destroyer of 1 360 tons ( standard displacement ) and had a complement of 138 sailors . It had 4 X 4.7 in guns ( 4 X 1 ) , 8 torpedo tubes and depth charge throwers . maximum speed was 35 knots . These nine vessels were built in 1932 , and participated in normal fleet duties and convoy protection . Of these nine ships only HMS Duncan and HMS Kootenay survived the war.

Athol Davaar Lamont Jr

Jean Walton was bereft having lost both a husband and a son in conflict . The death of her husband still was something of a mystery . The Government applied the 100 years rule to protect the release of information . They were unrelenting in this archaic of archaic legislation. Jean was always concerned that she had not been given details of Athol’s death . She asked her son to attempt to find out more .Sadly she passed away in 1954 before any further information had been ascertained. Time moved on and still there seemed little progress in adding substance to this family tragedy . In 2012 , an incredible story appeared in the specialist magazine “ Diver “ . It related how a team of divers had been investigating a wreck on the seabed off Seahouses which was thought to be that of a cargo ship .Visibility was quite clear on the initial dive and to their astonishment they found not a cargo ship but an intact submarine . Closer examination revealed that the telegraph of the ship next to the conning tower had writing in English on it and that it had three propellers instead of the normal two . This discovery resulted in close examination of the records available . Eventually the pieces of the jig saw began to fit . A British sub , the J6 had disappeared towards the end of World War l .It had been built at the Portsmouth Dockyard and was launched on the 9 September 1915 . For her day she was enormous being 274 feet long and armed with six 18” torpedo tubes and a 4” gun. She was capable of a maximum speed of 19.5 knots on the surface and 9.5 knots submerged. The J6 Class sub was the only British naval vessel to have three propellers! Now the basic facts of the sinking could be revealed as the story was published and relatives of those lost got in touch

Jean Walker ( Walton )

Nearly one hundred years later, in May 2017, I was contacted through “Facebook “by an Athol Walton. Athol transpired was the grandson of Jean Walker (Lamont / Walton) who had married Athol Davaar Lamont in 1918. Having taught genealogy as a subject to Further Education students over many years , I had in the course of time placed much of my own family tree on various web sites as a means of preserving our treasured past . Athol had at the behest of his family gone looking for fellow descendants of ADL and found me in the heart of Perthshire! It transpired that he had been instrumental in ensuring the naval records were correct in relation to those poor guys who perished so tragically as the War was in its last stages and that all were aware that it was as a result of friendly fire and not enemy action . A somewhat special occasion occurred as the divers returned to J6. It was a calm, peaceful day and a small ceremony was held as a poppy wreath was carefully placed on the water above the sunken sub and resting place of those brave men. Rest in Peace Athol Davaar Lamont and your fellow shipmates. You are not forgotten.