THE story of a Wellington boy who joined the Royal Navy at 14 years of age before fighting in World War One has been rescued from a ‘box of junk’ and restored by his grandson.

Alan Tromans, formerly of Wellington, was trawling through what he thought were discarded knick knacks left to him by his late mother, when he rediscovered the forgotten story of his grandfather’s war record.

Herbert George Redstone, of Ardwyn Estate, Wellington, doctored his birth certificate to join the navy in 1900, becoming a torpedo instructor and later a petty officer in a career which would would span 22 years.

“I always wondered why his gravestone and his birth certificate didn’t match” Mr Tromans said, “but now I know. I just don’t think that ‘ultimate sacrifice’ mentality is there nowadays.”

Mr Tromans has now painstakingly digitally restored copies of the documents, which tell the story of Herbert’s war. The inspiration for the restoration work came after Mr Tromans’ son, who himself served in the navy as a submariner, asked for copies of the documents. When Mr Tromans scanned them into his computer, he realised there was an opportunity to restore them on Photoshop.

The exacting recreations reveal Herbert's every movement throughout the course of World War One
The exacting recreations reveal Herbert's every movement throughout the course of World War One (Alan Tromans)

Mr Tromans said: “Most of the documents were shredded, I had to piece them together. A lot of it I had to recreate as I retraced his footsteps through the war. I verified all the information against the Navy’s records, which detail the history of each of the dozens of ships he served on.

“These were 120-year-old hand written parchment documents, there was a lot missing. But my grandson inspired me to finish the project and now all of my grandchildren have copies.”

One of the many ships Herbert served on was HMS Lion. The 700ft long battleship saw intense action during the war, including in the famous 1915 battle of Dogger Bank, where Lion was said to have scored ‘the first serious hits’ of the battle, when it struck a German battlecruiser, which caused a fire resulting in the death of 159 enemy sailors.

Mr Tromas had to digitally recreate handwriting to fill in the blanks on the damaged records
Mr Tromas had to digitally recreate handwriting to fill in the blanks on the damaged records (Alan Tromans)

Explaining how he was able to track his grandfather’s movements, Mr Tromans explained how he went as far as cross referencing coins which were bequeathed to him. He said:

“In order to check the accuracy, I have used naval archives and online websites to cross reference all the documents. In doing this and reading ship’s histories the whole project became absorbing and even more interesting.

“In a tin that my mother gave me I found coins from Egypt dated 1917 which match the dates that the ships were in that part of the world, I found other coins with the same date from the Ottoman Empire.

“There is also a picture of my grandfather on a camel next to the great pyramid.”

The restored documents have now been seen by Wellington Museum curator Colin Spackman who said it was incredibly rare for such a detailed history to be turned up. Mr Spackman said: “It is a great find, and it will be very interesting to study them further. Mr Tromans has done a great service to posterity by undertaking to preserve these documents of significant historic value.”