Able Seaman Sydney Rich
HMS Paragon, Royal Navy
Killed in Action
Date of Birth: 21 December 1895
Place of Birth: East Teignmouth, Devon
Date of Death: 17 March 1917 aged 21
Buried: Remembered on Plymouth Naval Memorial; Seafront Memorial and St. James’ Church Memorial Window, Teignmouth
Able Seaman Sydney Rich age 21.
Born 1895 and baptised on 21 December 1895, the son of John, a gardener and Elizabeth Rich, East Teignmouth. In 1901 Sydney was living with his family at Higher Brook Street; in 1911 he was living with his widowed mother and siblings at 6 Landscore Road and working as an errand boy.
Sidney joined the Royal Navy as a Boy Class 2, service number J/16391 in April 1913.
He was serving on board HMS Paragon, a destroyer, when he was reported missing and killed in an action with destroyers in the Straits of Dover, on 17 March 1917. Remembered on Plymouth Naval Memorial; Seafront Memorial and St. James’ Church Memorial Window, Teignmouth.
“Sidney Rich of Landscore Rd, one of two sons supporting mother Mrs Rich killed on torpedo boat destroyer, brother serving in Mesopotamia”. 23 March Teignmouth Post
HMS Paragon
The Paragon was one of twenty Acasta-class destroyers that served in the Royal Navy during the First World War.
HMS Paragon
Torpedoed by German torpedo boat S-49 and G-86 that were planning to destroy the Dover Barrage with Sperrbrecher Tillessen.
HMS Paragon was hit by a torpedo and gunfire and broke in half within eight minutes and sank.
Some of her depth charges exploded and killed some of the survivors. Only ten of her complement of 77 survived.
That was the date that Sydney Rich of Teignmouth died.
