The British Sailor of the First World War

By Quintin Colville

In 1914 Great Britain had the largest and most powerful navy the world had ever seen – a well-known fact, but what of the everyday experience of those who served in her? This fully illustrated book looks at the British sailor's life during the First World War, from the Falkland Islands to the East African coast to the North Sea. Meals in the stokers' mess and the admiral's cabin; the claustrophobic terrors of the engine room or submarine; the long separations from loved ones that were the shared experience of all ranks; the perils faced by Royal Naval Air Service pilots in the air; the possessions treasured by sailors while at sea – drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished materials from the National Maritime Museum archives, this is an authoritative and vivid account of lives lived in quite extraordinary circumstances.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Apr 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781784420710

Quintin Colville

Dr Quintin Colville is Curator of Naval History at the National Maritime Museum. He is lead curator of the new Nelson, Navy, Nation gallery, and specialises in the social and cultural history of the Royal Navy. His work has been awarded the Julian Corbett Prize in Modern Naval History, and the Royal Historical Society's Alexander Prize.

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VISIT

INTRODUCTION

IF YOU HAD been observing the Royal Navy’s ships in the opening days of the First World War you might have witnessed a curious sight. Whether at a British anchorage, or around the world from Gibraltar to Bermuda, some of the first casualties of the conflict were pianos. Already battered by rowdy evenings in the mess, and with hammers sticky from spilled beer, they were removed from gunrooms and wardrooms and either landed or unceremoniously pitched over the side. With them went assorted furniture and woodwork, comfortably domestic fittings and fixtures being considered a fire hazard if a ship was hit in combat, and also suddenly seeming rather out of keeping with the momentous news of war. This is not to say that the Navy roughed it in the years that followed. Most flag officers continued to boast day and dining cabins stocked with mahogany and silver. But these Spartan preparations reflected the reality that, after a century of relatively untroubled British sea power, the Royal Navy was facing a new European struggle and a stern test of its mettle.

Accounts and commemorations of the conflict are understandably dominated by the appalling slaughter on the Western Front. The army’s loss of life has a horrifying arithmetic that the war at sea cannot match. The cultural outpouring that began with the war poets and continues to this day through novels, films and documentaries has also familiarised us with the stock characters of trench warfare: the stoical Tommy; the well-bred young lieutenant, revolver in hand; and the well-fed general enjoying the comforts of a château far behind the lines. For all their partiality and inaccuracy, these caricatures at least give us a point of entry to the experiences of the land war. The case of the Navy is quite different. Public memory of the hundreds of thousands of men and women who served within its ranks is, by comparison, blurred and vague. Who they were, what they did, and what contribution they made, are questions that most would find hard to answer.

Masters of the Seas, oil on canvas by W. L. Wyllie. The leading battleship, HMS Audacious, had already been sunk when this painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1915. (BHC4167)

The aim of this book is to bring these Royal Naval lives into sharper focus. It cannot attempt to explore the immensely important role played by merchant mariners, or indeed by non-British sailors from around the world. The range of naval contexts that this involves remains extraordinarily diverse – from the mighty steel battleships that clashed at Jutland in 1916, to shallow-draft gunboats patrolling the inland waterways of what is now Iraq during the Mesopotamia campaign. What follows is also careful to show that the naval war did not simply take place on the waves. Although largely untried weapons at the beginning of the conflict, Royal Navy submarines soon proved their value, growing rapidly in size, seaworthiness and endurance. Even the sky was a naval battleground. For Royal Naval Air Service pilots, naval war was waged at the limits of technology and with tactics and equipment that evolved with dizzying speed. Moreover, tens of thousands of sailors fought ashore as part of the Royal Naval Division: from Belgium in 1914 to Gallipoli in 1915, and from there to the killing fields of France.

Crew of the battleship Queen Elizabeth assembled for a visit by the Bishop of London in July 1916. (N16562: Howe Collection)

The maritime struggle that involved this vast and varied cast of characters was truly global, raging from the North Sea to South America, and from Africa to China. The stakes could not have been higher. Britain’s war effort depended on food and raw materials from overseas – crucial supplies that could only arrive by ship. Without sea power, rations and reinforcements could not have reached the men in the trenches, and the hundreds of thousands who fought alongside them from India, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, Africa and Canada would never have arrived at all. From the first day of the war the German navy threatened these lifelines, and the men and women who defended them