Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Acting Chief Engine Room Artificer 2 G. L. Burnett, Royal Navy, among those lost when H.M. Submarine E6 was mined off Harwich in December 1915

Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, Somaliland 1908-10 (271167 E.R.A. 3 Cl., H.M.S. Fox); Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Persian Gulf 1909-1914 (271167 E.R.A. 3 Cl., H.M.S. Fox); 1914-15 Star (271167 Act. C.E.R.A. 2, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (271167 Act. C.E.R.A. 2, R.N.), good very fine and better (5) £400-500

George Logan Burnett was born in Glasgow in September 1881 and entered the Royal Navy as an Acting Engine Room Artificer 4th Class in August 1903. Having then witnessed active service aboard H.M.S. Fox off Somaliland and in the Persian Gulf, in the period May 1908 to July 1910, he was advanced to Engine Room Artificer 2nd Class in August of the latter year. Burnett was serving in the cruiser Leander on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, but transferred to submarines in May 1915, and joined the E6 that August. Beneath the Waves, by A. S. Evans, takes up the story:

‘Towards the end of December 1915 the Admiralty arrived at the conclusion that U-Boats were likely to come out into the North Sea by way of Horn Reefs. On 25 December E6 (Lieutenant-Commander W. J. Foster) was ordered to the vicinity of Horn Reefs for a possible interception. Weather permitting, Foster was to be relieved after six days by another submarine on the same duty. William Foster, who was thirty, left Harwich on 26 December. E6 had not long left harbour when, near the Sunk Light Vessel, she struck a mine and sank with the loss of all hands.

The loss of E6 was all the more unfortunate in that the armed trawler Resono had been mined in the same minefield a short time before. The incident is further complicated by the fact that a torpedo boat in the vicinity signalled Foster to keep clear. Although it appeared that the signal had been taken in, E6 had continued her course and, in full view of the torpedo boat’s crew, struck the mine and disappeared.’

Burnett has no known grave and is commemorated on the Plymouth Memorial.