[1] Kipling wrote it for Jack Cornwell, the 16-year-old youngest recipient of the Victoria Cross, who stayed by his post on board the light cruiser HMS Chester at the Battle of Jutland until he died.
John Kipling was a 2nd Lt in the Irish Guards and disappeared in September 1915 during the Battle of Loos in the First World War.
The poem was published as a prelude to a story in his book Sea Warfare written about the Battle of Jutland in 1916.
[4] Ben Silverstone first played Jack Kipling on stage, while Daniel Radcliffe took over the role for the ITV screen adaptation of the same name.
', the first biography of John Kipling, written by Tonie and Valmai Holt, was published in 1998 by Pen and Sword Books.