b. 21/04/1887 Bath, Somerset. d. 28/11/1967 Bath, Somerset.
DATE OF AM ACTION: 15/07/1919 Baltic.
Richard J R Scott CB AM
Richard was the second, and oldest son, of four children born to Reverend Richard James Herbert and Alice Marian Scott (nee Trask). He was baptised on 18th May 1887 at St Mary’s, Bathwick. He was educated at Bath College and on HMS Britannia as a Royal Naval Cadet, before officially joining the RN in 1902. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1909, and Lieutenant Commander in 1917, taking command of HMS Myrtle. He was further promoted to Commander (1922), Captain (1929) and then Rear Admiral in 1942. He married Dorothy May Sturdy and they had a son. Dorothy died in 1925, and he later married, in 1939, Ruth Margaret Macintyre Evans.
He made a Companion of the Bath in 1944, and became a JP in Somerset in 1947. He was later Deputy Lieutenant of Somerset (1950) and became a founder member of the Albert Medal Association in 1966. He died the following year, aged 80.
AM CITATION:
On the 15th July, 1919, during minesweeping operations in the Baltic, four mines were swept up which H.M.S. “Myrtle” commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Scott, and another vessel were ordered to sink. During the operations the two vessels were mined, and H.M.S. ” Myrtle ” immediately began to sink. So great was the force of the explosion that all hands in the engine room and after boiler room of the ship were killed with one exception, and many others of the crew were wounded. After the wounded had been successfully transferred to another vessel, the: forepart of H.M.S. ” Myrtle broke away and sank Lieutenant-Commander Scott, hearing that the fate of one of the crew of the ” Myrtle ” had not been definitely ascertained, gallantly returned alone to what was left of the ship, which was drifting through the minefield, rolling heavily and burning fiercely, and regardless of the extreme risk which he ran, made a thorough search for the missing man, unfortunately without success
BURIAL LOCATION: UNKNOWN.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM, LONDON.
