ONE can only imagine the terror suffered by a teenager from Sale as his ship and others were targeted by deadly enemy ships during the First World War at the Battle of Coronel.

Sixteen-year old Alfred Starkey Appleby, of Rutland Lane, who had previously attended Worthington Road School, decided to join the Royal Navy as a 'boy signaller' on board the armoured cruiser HMS Monmouth.

At the outbreak of the conflict his ship was despatched as part of a small squadron to the South Atlantic. And by October 1914 the ship was operating near to The Falkland Islands, where a more powerful force of modern German naval vessels was detected. On November 1 the squadron commander Vice-Admiral Craddock decided to engage with the enemy, despite Admiralty instructions to maintain a watching brief.

The ensuing battle off the coast of Chile was described as 'brief and fairly one sided' as the German's sank the Monmouth and Craddock's flagship HMS Good hope with the total loss of 1,570 including the young Appleby, with no survivors.

A report of the final Monmouth's final moments were recorded by a witness on HMS Glasgow, who described the hopeless situation the Monmouth and its skipper Frank Brandt faced before she was sunk.

"Knowing our chance of victory was hopeless, we asked the Monmouth whether she could escape by steering North West. Capt Brandt her gallant commanding officer replied: 'My ship is taking on water badly forward, so I shall attempt to ram or torpedo one of the enemy'."

The witness added: "Shortly after turning away, we counted the flash of 70 guns all directed at the ill fated little Monmouth, and after this we saw her no more."

A report in that month's Altrincham Guardian makes mention of the death of another member of the crew a first class stoker Stanley Charles Haslam, 22, of 8, Mayor's Road, Altrincham.

However, the loss at sea of their teenager son failed to elicit any mention, that might, at least, have brought some comfort to his devastated parents Stephen and Mary back in Sale.

Worse was to follow a year later with the loss of their only other son Charles aged 24.

Their names are recorded on a number of memorials including Sale.