Able Seaman Enoch Barton
J/6680 Royal Navy H.M.S. Vanguard
Killed in an explosion 9th July 1917, aged 29
Lived at 850 Padiham Road
Commemorated on the Plymouth Memorial, UK
Burnley Express 21/7/1917 - 21/7/1917

The St Vincent class battleship HMS Vanguard was built at Barrow and completed in 1910. She was one of the earlier descendants of the original Dreadnought and was a powerful warship to start with. HMS Vanguard displaced nearly 20000 tons and was 536 feet long. Her armament was substantial. It included 5 gun turrets each with two 12 inch guns, twelve 4 inch guns and three 18 inch torpedo tubes. Her turbines were powerful. She spent much of her time in WW1 at Scapa Flow, with the odd sortie across the North Sea. She saw action at Jutland, but came out without damage.
The Vanguard was the victim of an internal explosion in Scapa Flow just before midnight on 9th July 1917 Her magazine was detonated by unstable cordite and within seconds the battleship was annihilated together with 843 officers and men. There were 3 survivors of the explosion - one of whom died of wounds and 97 crew members who were on leave also survived. One of her 12 inch turrets was thrown over a mile to land in Flotta. This appalling accident in some ways resembled the explosion that the cruiser HMS Natal suffered in Cromaty Firth in 1915.