SEVEN men from a Hampshire village who were lost at sea during the First World War are being remembered as part of a modern day treasure hunt.

The seamen of the Parish of Netley Marsh are being commemorated in a new geocache launched this week.

It was created by 6th New Forest North, Netley Marsh Scout Group together with members of Southampton’s Maritime Archaeology Trust as part of the Forgotten Wrecks of the First World War project.

Geocaching is an outdoor game using GPS signals on their phones to navigate to a set of co-ordinates to search for the hidden ‘treasure’. In this case the geocaching.com website will direct hunters to the memorial where they will need to read the names to find the missing letters and crack the code that will lead to the hidden cache.

More than 4,000 British ships were lost during the conflict, and more than 1,000 wrecks lie off the south coast. Forgotten Wrecks, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, is a four year project, timed to coincide with the centenary of the First World War, which aims to produce a comprehensive map of the wrecks and tell the stories of the ships and the men and women who served aboard them.

Among the sailors from Netley Marsh who died during the Great War was Charles Kilford, aboard HMHS (Hospital Ship) Glenart Castle.

When war broke out in 1914, Charles and his friends, Reggie Andrews, William Doe and his brother-in-law Thomas Osman, all living in Bartley, joined the Mercantile Marine and were posted to the Glenart Castle, bringing the wounded back from the Western Front. Charles served as a Greaser in the engine room.

Charles returned on leave to marry his sweetheart Doris Taylor from the Travellers Rest public house in Totton. They were married on Saturday, February 23 1918 at St Mary’s Church in Eling. Charles had to return to his ship, docked in Newport South Wales the following day ready to sail for France.

Tragically, on the Tuesday, the Glenart Castle was torpedoed at 4am by the German U-boat UC-56. The explosion destroyed most of the lifeboats and the ship sank in eight minutes taking with it 162 people, including the captain, eight nurses and many of the engine room crew. Charles, 22, Reggie, 18, William, 29, and Thomas, 24, all lost their lives.

After the war, theAdmiralty sought the captains of U-Boats who sank hospital ships, in order to charge them with war crimes. Wilhelm Kiesewetter — the commander of UC-56— was arrested after the war and interned in the Tower of London.. However, he was released on the grounds that Britain had no right to hold a detainee during the Armistice.

Charles Kilford is commemorated on the Netley Marsh memorial, his friends are remembered on the Copythorne Memorial.

The Maritime Archaeology Trust offers free talks and educational workshops for schools and community groups. Temporary exhibitions about the Forgotten Wrecks are touring south coast counties. For further information visit forgottenwrecks.maritimearchaeologytrust.org.