Decorations DSM 15th September 1916 Next of kin address Ethel Douglas/Lily Rayner UK Mother Sarah Father William More info Discharged March 1921 Samuel James Keen was the second son of William and Sarah Keen and was born in Uxbridge Middlesex. He joined the navy as a Boy Seaman in May 1915 being posted to the training establishment HMS Impregnable. He was posted to HMS Valiant on 13th January 1916 as a Boy first class. Valiant was then brand new and indeed did not commission until February 1916. She one of the Queen Elizabeth Class of Superdreadnoughts, four of which comprised the fifth Battle Squadron under Admiral Evan-Thomas at Jutland and as the fastest battleships then in the Grand Fleet, they were operating in direct support to Admiral Beatty’s first Battlecruiser Squadron. Valiant was undamaged in the battle but Boy Keen was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, gazetted 15 September 1916 for services at Jutland. No specific details have been identified. Keen went on to be rated Ordinary and then Able Seaman. He was discharged in 1921but seems to have been in trouble because his record notes ”after punishment”. He spent some time as a merchant seaman in the 1920s on a ship called the Royston Grange. He married twice, firstly to Ethel Douglas in 1919. She died of TB in 1923 and they had one son. He then married Lily Amelia Rayner on 31st March 1929 and they had three children.