Robert William Spice was born in Northfleet, Kent, on 26 November 1891 and joined the Royal Navy as a Stoker Second Class on 6 September 1910.
Promoted Stoker First Class on 6 September 1911, he was posted to H.M.S. Pathfinder on 1 October 1913 and served in her during the initial stages of the Great War.
He was killed in action on 5 September 1914, when Pathfinder was torpedoed and sunk by the German U-boat SM U-21 off St. Abb’s Head in the Firth of Forth, and sank within four minutes with the loss of nearly all hands - the first ship ever to be sunk by a self-propelled torpedo fired by a submarine.
He is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial.
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