KEIGHLEY’S ‘mystery’ marine John Henry Parnell might have been deployed on anti-submarine patrols.

The Royal Marine, whose war exploits have remained hidden for 96 years, may also have been involved in heavy fighting in France.

The two clues to Parnell’s service with the elite naval regiment have been unearthed by Royal Marines specialist Ian Maine.

Mr Maine, deputy head of collections at the Royal Marines Museum in Hampshire, looked into Parnell’s career after his story was highlighted in the Keighley News by amateur historians from the Men of Worth Project.

Parnell was a ‘short service’ marine who enlisted in 1915 and spent most of the First World War at a Royal Naval depot on the coast of Ireland aboard the former corvette HMS Colleen.

His service record has an unexplained entry for October 25, 1918, two weeks before the war ended, stating ‘wounds and hurts, Special Services’with the British Expeditionary Force France.

Mr Maine this week re-checked Parnell’s records and discovered that HMS Colleen was a ‘receiving ship’ for the Royal Navy Auxiliary Patrol.

Mr Maine said the Patrol was an organisation set up as an anti-submarine initiative.

He said: “A good number of marines were attached to the patrol as gunners etc – normally these were long service marines, so a short service marine in this role is unusual.

“This would also explain why ‘Sybil Point’ in County Kerry has been annotated next to the ship name, as this is where he was based as part of this work.”

Mr Maine said that the awarding of a Victory Medal to Parnell indicated that he was deployed on operations, and the auxiliary patrol would qualify him for that.

Mr Maine added: “Similarly it would appear he did deploy to France.

“By this stage in the war he was likely to have been sent to the 1st Royal Marine Battalion fighting through France, which was taking heavy casualties.”