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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Royal Navy personal accounts - recommendations?


Cymro

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Having just read Mee's "Marine Gunner" I've realised how few Royal Navy or Merchant Navy accounts I've read. I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations of books rare and commonplace that I could try to get hold of. I'd be particularly interested in accounts by Ratings or the lower ranks if any such exist.

 

Any thoughts gratefully received..

 

Best regards

 

Jon

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Some of these will include less GW material proportionately, but:-

  • Allingham, Henry; Goodwin, Denis. Kitchener's Last Volunteer. Mainstream Publishing, 2008.
  • Choules, Claude. The Last of the Last: The Final Survivor of the First World War (2nd ed.).  Mainstream Publishing, 2010.
  • Scrimgeour, Alexander. Scrimgeour's scribbling diary. [Available in a modern edition: a midshipman, and very much of his time, who was a casualty of Jutland].
  • Fawcett, GWW and Hooper, HW, eds. The fighting at Jutland: the personal experiences of sixty officers and men of the British fleet. Hutchinson, 1920.
  • Arthur, Max, ed. Lost voices of the Royal Navy: life in the Royal Navy from 1914-1945. Hodder, 2005.
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No trouble. You probably know that Henry Allingham and Claude Choules were two of the last surviving GW veterans: Allingham was RNAS but also at Jutland, and Claude was RN.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Fawcett and Hooper, "The fighting at Jutland" mentioned above, is obviously narrow in its focus, but is really worthwhile. I commend it, not just because I have researched the Fawcett family, which sent four sons and a daughter to war, (one killed MID , one seriously wounded MC on 1/7/16, and another MC lost in WW2 after the fall of Singapore, not bad for Yorkshire mill owners), but because it brings together so many experiences from that short period of time.  The Fawcett  who compiled it was awarded a DSO  for services in WW2 as well.

 

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One of the most interesting accounts of life on battleships before and during the war is ''AYE AYE SIR'' by 'Clinker Knocker'  who was a stoker.  Published in the '30's it is full of anecdotes concerning the everyday life of sailors during the war-unfortunately quite rare!

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Found another one today: 

 

On four fronts with the Royal Naval Division / by G. Sparrow RN and J.N. McBean Ross RN. London: Hodder, 1918.

 

Ross was a surgeon RN, incidentally. The book is available online at archive.org.

 

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