Decorations DSC Next of kin address England More info Midshipman John Blaxland Woolley, R.N., H.M.S. Vengeance, took part in the landing party at Kum Kale on the Asian side of the Dardanelles on 26th February 1915. Born on 15th February 1898, he was the son of a clergyman, Rev. Alfred Duncan Woolley and Grace Constance Woolley, of Weston Patrick Rectory, Winchfield, Hampshire. Joining the Navy shortly before the outbreak of war, he had been appointed a Midshipman on 2nd August 1914, H.M.S. Vengeance was his first ship. He was later awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his role in the attempt to destroy the beached British submarine 'E15' in the Dardanelles in one of H.M.S. Triumph's picket boats on 18th April 1915. Serving aboard H.M.S. Inflexible at Jutland, he survived the war and remained in the Navy, being mentioned in despatches for his services in the Caspian Sea in 1918/1919. Retiring at his own request on 16th September 1927 with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, he rejoined the Navy following the outbreak of the Second World War. And was commended “for his successful and valuable achievement in forming an anti-sabotage Corps of Civilians for voluntary duties to carry out watch parties on board liners and coastal ship whilst at the port of Shanghai. Cdr. Woolley was himself organised & carried out the training of the corps.” Taken prisoner by the Japanese at Shanghai on 8th December 1941, the Swiss Chargé d'Affairs reported on 26th June 1942 that Woolley had been sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for attempting to escape. Woolley did succeed in escaping in October 1944 and awarded the O.B.E. “for great courage and outstanding devotion to duty” Commander C. D. Smith, U.S.N., a fellow prisoner and escaper from Shanghai wrote extensively of his experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war, referencing Woolley many times in his memoir, “Officially Dead.”