Arthur Weatherill
Place of birth: Chester-le-Street, Durham, England
Previous occupation: Farm hand
Service: Royal Navy
Rank: Able Seaman
Service Number: JX142465
Joined Hood: 25th June 1938 (Able Seaman)
Left Hood: 1st June 1939 (Able Seaman)
Biographical Information: Arthur Weatherill entered the Royal Navy as a Boy Second Class on 29th August 1934, at the new entry training establishment HMS Ganges, at Shotley, near Ipswich, Suffolk.
Following basic training ashore and afloat, including in the elderly training battleship HMS Iron Duke, Arthur successfully underwent professional specialist gunnery training in HMS Excellent, the gunnery training school in Portsmouth.
By the time Arthur joined HMS Hood in June 1938 he was an Able Seaman. He served in Hood for just under a year, before further drafts to HMS Excellent.
Having joined the heavy cruiser HMS Suffolk in September 1939 as an Able Seaman, Arthur remained onboard until September 1941. During that time he was advanced twice, first to Leading Seaman and then to Acting Petty Officer (Temporary). Being in Suffolk in May 1941 meant that he was onboard during that ship's vital encounter with the German battleship Bismarck and her consort Prinz Eugen, in the run-up to the Battle of the Denmark Strait, in which Hood was lost. He would, no doubt, have felt the loss of his former ship particularly keenly.
Arthur continued to serve in the Royal Navy throughout World War II and after, and achieved promotion to Chief Petty Officer in 1948.
Additional Photographs
None at this time.
No known memorials
Sources
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
'Register of Deaths of Naval Ratings' (data extracted by Director of Naval Personnel (Disclosure Cell), Navy Command HQ, 2009)
His son, Mark Weatherill, information November 2020.