PITTS, Charles Eric

Charles Goodman was born in Amblecote and was the son of Mr and Mrs C. H. Pitts of 76 Lower Higher Street, Stourbridge. He was originally an iron-worker but he joined the navy in 1912. He served as a Signalman on several ships including Impregnable and had been present in the 1916 Battle of Jutland when he was wounded by a shell splinter. In January 1917 he was serving on HMS Simoom, a very recently commissioned destroyer. It was patrolling the Dover Straits and southern North Sea when it was sunk by a German submarine on the 23rd January. A torpedo penetrated to a magazine and Signalman Charles Goodman was among many who died. He was 20 years of age and is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial and the Amblecote and Lye and Wollescote and Lye church Memorials. It seems that he was known as Charles Goodman and appears with that name on the Amblecote Memorial.