Trench warfare on the Western Front may have captured the popular imagination, but the First World War was very much a maritime conflict as well. This section of WWI/WWW provides resources on the naval side - more will be added as contributions are received.

Updates to the Maritime War

Contents:

• Dedication
• Bibliography
• Communications
• Ships, Weapons, Tactics
• Fleet Deployments//Fleet Lists
• Battles and Campaigns
• People and Personalities
• Links

Dedications- Bill Schleihauf: 27 January 2009

Bibliography

A listing of books and papers (including languages other than English) pertaining to the War at Sea.

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Communications

"Equal Speed Charlie London"

Flags, searchlight and semaphore were the established means of communication, but wireless (ie radio) had a major impact on the war at sea.

• Royal Navy Signal Flags - 1913
• Man-of-War Ensigns - 1913
• Shipping Line House Flags and Funnel Markings- 1913
• Some Notes Concerning RN Destroyer Pendant Numbers
• Japanese Destroyer Hull Markings
• Phonetic Alphabets
• Maple Leaf On the Funnel of Canadian Warships
• Royal Navy Battle Ensign
• Warship Colours Pre-War
• Warship Colour Schemes of World War I
• Austro-Hungarian Paint Schemes
• Paint Schemes of the Imperial German Navy (an external link)
• "Special Badges" worn by British Vessels
• RN Signal Department Organization, 1913
• RN Signal Branch Examination Standards, 1913
• RN Morse Code Procedure
• RN Semaphore Procedure
• RN Flag Waving Procedure
• SMS Magedeburg and Room 40
• Grand Fleet Recognition Marks and Signalling Procedure, 1916
• From German Navy Tactical Orders:
  • Night Recognition Signals (19 October 1915)
  • Enemy Recognition Signals (25 June 1915)
  • Principles of Conduct Against Submarines With Reference to their Recognition Signals (25 June 1915)
  • Attack Signals for Destroyers in Day Action (11 June 1915)
  • Jambing Organisation for the Scouting Groups (2 November 1917)
  • Signals When Attacking Enemy Submarines with Depth Charges (21 November 1915)
• (British) Navigational Lights and Signals, 1913
• Notes on Naval Communications, 1924
• US Navy and Control of Radio Frequencies
• UK Control of Wireless Telegraphy

Ships, Weapons, Tactics

The technicalities: ship design; weapon specifications; and the resulting tactics.

Ship Photo Gallery
Some Great War photos taken by James Robert Halliday, RN
Photos by John Prouse
Photos by John H. Rogers
Photographs of the US Navy's 14" Railway Guns on the Western Front

Extracts from Brassey's Naval Annual (various years)

Jane's Fighting Ships, 1919 (an external link)

The Basics:

• The History of Naval Design and Purpose, "an introduction for beginners", written by Steve Cobb
• Usage Notes for Writers
• Warship Costs by Barry Slemmings
• "Boxing the Compass" Basic terminology, as well as the Points of the Compass (including the equivalents in Gaelic!), and an explanation of the difference between "helm" and "rudder" orders.
• Points of the Compass in Different Services
• Explanation of 'Metacentric Height'
• Ships' Rigging
• Coaling from a Collier
• "Oil Fuel Notes" - an Engine Room Artificer's notebook from 1916
• Introduction to Boiler Room Operations
• Introduction to Engine Room Machinery and Operations
• Steam Engine Library - an outside link to a collection of historical documents relating to the history of the steam engine.

Ships and Shipbuilding:

Austro-Hungarian Empire
• Austro-Hungarian Danube Flotilla by Erwin Sieche
• Austro-Hungarian Submarines by Erwin Sieche

  British Empire and Commonwealth

• The Red Duster is an external site that is an excellent source on the ships and the men of the British Merchant Navy
• British Empire Dockyards and Ports, 1909
• Introduction of the Gyro-Compass into the RN
• Remnants of the Royal Sovereign Class
• Origins and Development of the Battlecruiser - summary and discussion
• Laying Down of HMS Hood - discussion of the real date that work on this famous warship began
• RN Destroyer Fuel Endurance, c1918
• Submarines Built in Canada During WW1 - including details of the H-Class built in Montreal
• The Royal Navy's K and M Class Submarines
• The "K" Submarines
• The RN's Tigris + Euphrates River Gunboats
• RN Gunboats, Minelayers and Monitors - a brief summary of the ships sent to North Russia in 1919
• Admiralty Trawlers and Drifters
• Trawlers and Drifters in RN Service
• RN Trawlers Built in Canada During WW1
• "Sin" Trawlers (ex-German)
• British Armed Merchant Cruisers
• British Dummy Battleships
• British 'Q'-Ships
• The loss of HMCS Galiano, the only Canadian warship lost during the First World War
• HMCS (?) Earl Grey
• HMCS Naden

  Imperial Germany

• A Primer on German Shipyards
• The Propulsion of SMS Prinzregent Luitpold

  Russia

• Imperial Russian Navy Predreadnought Drawings
• Admiral Ushakov Coast Defence Battleships
• 16-inch Gun Projects
• Imperial Russian Navy Submarines

  United States

• Cage vs Tripod Masts
• USS Texas Machinery
• USS Texas - an external link to a site devoted to one of the very few ships that survive from the Great War. Worth specific mention:
  • Texas's Armour at the same external site
• USS Nevada Armour Arrangement
• United States Navy, November 1918

  Other Countries

• The Story of the Royal Roumanian Navy's cruiser Elizabetha
• Spanish Dreadnought Projects

Weapons and Defence:

Theory and Design:

• Projected Target Areas with Variations in the Angle on the Bow by Bill Jurens, in regards to naval gunnery
• Danger Space
• Guns and Armour - an excellent source of information on the intricate details (an external link to Jon Parshall's Imperial Japanese Navy Combined Fleet site)
• Pre-Dreadnought Medium Armament

Fire Control (gunnery):

• US Naval Ordnance and Gunnery (1910)
• US Naval Fire Control, 1918
• Gunnery Fire Control Gear (from the RN's Torpedo Drill Book)
• The Gyroscope and Gunnery - from the 1914 Naval Annual. This is a PDF (ie Adobe Acrobat (TM) format) file.
• The Mechanical Analog Computers of Hannibal Ford and William Newell by A. Ben Clymer (an external link to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
• RN Fire Control Data Flow, 1914
• Nikon and the Sponsorship of Japan's Optical Industry by the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1917-1945 (an external link)

Guns, Armour and Projectiles:

• Russo-Japanese War Guns, Armour and Damage
• Maintenance of Guns and Mountings
• The 15-inch Guns of Vanguard, Courageous and Glorious, which has some useful data on the manufacturerers of the RN's 15-inch weapons.
• Notes from the Turrets at the Dogger Bank Action
• The (Vickers)/Hotchkiss/Nordenfelt 3 + 6 pounder guns
• USN Ammunition Stowage, 1917
• USS Texas Gunnery + Torpedoes
• USN 14-inch Gun
• USN 14-inch Shell Hoist
• 3-inch Scoville Mk XI Fuze
• Gunpowder and Explosives
• Explosions in Warships During the War
• Russian Shells
• Russian Turret Drawings
• British Tests of Russian 12-inch APC shells

Torpedoes and Anti-Torpedo Protection

• Submarine Torpedo Tubes + Firing Systems
• RN Torpedo Director - 1909
• Torpedo Fire Control in RN Capital Ships, 1914
• Anti-Torpedo Nets
• Listening Through Hydrophones
• Introduction of the Depth Charge into the RN

Mines and Minesweeping:

• Observation Mines (from the RN's Torpedo Drill Book)
• Royal Engineers Corps of Submarine Miners
• 'Trial and Error' The Royal Navy and Mine Countermeasures 1904-1914 by Len Barnett (an external link)

Tactics:

• Jane's Naval Wargame
• Imperial German Navy Tactical Orders
• "The Fleet in Action", from the British service publication The Naval Review, 1914
• "Torpedo Fire in Future Fleet Actions", from the The Naval Review, 1914
• Instructions for Tactical and Strategical Exercises January 1921 - Royal Navy document OU5243
• Thoughts on USN Tactics, 1912, from Rear-Admiral Bradley Fiske
• Cruisers and Destroyers in the General Action - USN Tactical Doctrine, 1937

• Austro-Hungarian Navy 1914
• Austro-Hungarian Danube Flotilla 1914
• French Navy, Mediterranean 1914
• French Navy, Armoured Vessels 1914
• French Navy, English Channel 1914
• French Navy, Cruisers and Destroyers 1914
• French Navy, Minelayers, Submarines, Torpedo Boats and Gunboats 1914
• another French Navy List, 1914
• French Navy, 1918
• Imperial German Navy 1914
• Imperial Japanese Navy 1914
• (Imperial) Russian Navy- Baltic Fleet, March 1917
• Ottoman Navy 1914
• Royal Italian Navy 1914 - 1915
• Royal Navy, Capital Ships at Home, 1914
• "Troubridge's DD's" - 1914
  (A discussion of the allocation of RN destroyers to the Mediterranean for the opening moves of the war)
• Royal Navy, Mediterranean 1914
• Royal Navy, Foreign Stations 1914
  (includes Royal Australian and Royal Canadian Navies)
• The Grand Fleet, 1914-1918
  (includes the Harwich Force)
• RN Cruisers 1914-1918
• RN Destroyers, 1914
• RN Destroyers 1914-1918
• RN Destroyer Flotillas, 1918
• RN Submarines, 4 August 1914
• RN Submarine Disposition, 1916
• RN Submarine Disposition, 1918
• RN Sloops, 1918
• RN Minesweeper Flotillas, 1918
• Miscellaneous Smaller Navies 1914
• Notes on U.S. Fleet Organisation and Disposition, 1898-1941

Battles and Campaigns

Orders-of-battle, descriptions, commentary on the Naval Actions of the War (as well as other discreet events) and the campaigns to which they belong.

• Currently under development, Gordon Smith's Online Naval History site (an outside link) contains a database of World War One warship losses of all nations. This is an excellent site, well worth visiting!
• Another useful site is: US Navy Ships Sunk or Damaged (an external link to the US Merchant Marine website)

• Worth noting is that some external sites have provided online versions of:
  • Admiral Scheer's book Germany's High Seas Fleet in the World War (English translation)
  • Jellicoe's The Grand Fleet
  • von Hase's The Battle of the Skagerrak (English)
• The complete text of The Millstone: British Naval Policy in the Mediterranean, 1900-1914, the Commitment to France and British Intervention in the War by Geoffrey Miller is available online (an external link). Note that in some areas he differs from Dr. Nicholas Lambert's Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution.
• A site which lists a number of the "Laws" of Armed Conflicts, including the various Hague Conventions is the Peace Resource Center.
• There are a number of treaties on-line at the International Committee of the Red Cross
• Anglo-Japanese Naval Cooperation, 1914-1918, (an outside link) by Dr. Timothy D. Saxon, in the Winter 2000 issue of the Naval War College Review, describes in detail the contribution of Japan to the Allied Powers.

Battles

• Heligoland Bight - 28 August, 1914
  • Forces Involved
  • "Gallant Arethusa"
• Battle of Coronel - 1 November, 1914 and the Falklands - 8 December, 1914
  • Summary of Coronel and the Falklands
  • The Battle of the Falklands
  • A Pictorial
  • Forces Involved
  • First Casualties in the Royal Canadian Navy
  • Sturdee's Despatch on the Falklands Battle
  • Fairport at the Falklands
  • Falkland Memorial
• Loss of SMS Emden, 9 November 1914
  • Report of Captain von Muller
  • The Post-Action Report of HMAS Sydney's Medical Officer
    (a link to the Medical section of WWI_WWW)
• Battle of Cape Sarych - 18 November, 1914
  • Account of the Battle, in which Russian pre-dreadnoughts take on and defeat the German/Turkish battlecruiser Goeben!
  • Extracts from the Souchon Papers (in German)
• Loss of HMS Viknor, 13 January 1915
  (formerly the Viking of the Blue Star Line, whose crew included men of the Newfoundland Division, RNR)
• Sinking of HM Australian Submarine AE2, 30 April, 1915
• Sinking of the Lusitania, 7 May 1915
  • Discussion on WW1-L List
  • The Lusitania Controversy an excellent paper by Keith Allen
  • The Laws of Blockade a summary
• Loss of HMS Princess Irene, 27th May 1915
• Sinking of UB 4 by the Q-ship HMS Inverlyon, 16 August 1915
• Loss of the Arabic, 19 August 1915
• Warship Losses, to January 1916 - As Published in 1916
  • Allies
  • Central Powers
• Jutland - 31 May, 1916
  • Jellicoe's Letter of October, 1914
  • Complete Order of Battle
  • List of Royal Navy Ships, with Commanding Officers
  • List of Destroyers at the Battle
    (a link to the Documents section of WWI_WWW)
  • Losses
  • Commonwealth (non-British) Casualties
  • Jellicoe's Official Despatch
  • Position of Officers on the Bridge of HMS Iron Duke
  • Jellicoe's Despatch, from The Times, 7 July 1916
  • Charts of the Battle
  • Beatty's Report
    (a link to the Documents section of WWI_WWW)
  • Rudyard Kipling's Account of the Battle
    (a link to the Documents section of WWI_WWW)
  • An account by the Captain of SMS Seydlitz
  • An account by the Gunnery Officer of SMS Seydlitz
  • German View of British Gunnery
  • "Who Won?"a discussion
  • The Imperial German Navy After Jutland a paper by Kent Crawford
  • The Jutland Documents
  • The Wrecks of Jutland
• The Sinking of HMS Hampshire 5 June 1916 (an external link to an excellent site)
• Loss of the RMS Arabia, 6 November 1916
  • The Sinking of the Arabia, by Tim Law and Paula Scotland (an external link)
• 1 November - 7 November, 1916
  • Events
• Loss of the Hospital Ship Britannic 21 November 1916
  • Nurse Ada Garland's Diary
• Loss of the SS Mount Temple, 6 December 1916 (an outside link)
• Loss of HMS Laurentic, 25th January 1917
• Battle in the Otranto Straits, 15 May 1917
  • Summary and Photographs
• HMAS Sydney Against a Zeppelin, 4 May 1917
• Loss of HMS Vanguard, 9 July 1917
  • Summary and Photographs
  • Report of the Court of Enquiry
  • List of Casualties and Survivors
  • Commander Kyosuke Eto, Imperial Japanese Navy
  • Salvaging the Wreck, 1958-1959 by Frank Lilleker
  • "ScapaMAP" Diving Survey
• German Assault on Moon and Oesel Islands, October 1917
  • Forces Involved
  • Operation Albion by Gary Staff
  • Russian Order of Battle
• Loss of HMS Mary Rose and Strongbow, 17 October 1917
  • Summary by Keith Allen
• Loss of HM Ships Opal and Narborough, 12 January 1918
• Raid on Zeebrugge - 22/23 April, 1918
  • Zeebrugge
    An outside link to Colin McKenzie's fine tribute to his great-uncle, who won the Victoria Cross in HMS Vindictive. It contains a very good summary of the raid.
• Sinking of UB72, 12 May 1918
• Sinking of the Hospital Ship Llandovery Castle, 27 June 1918
• Torpedoing of U.S.S. West Bridge, 16 August 1918
  • Summary and Casualty List

Campaigns

• The Pre-War Naval Race
  • Admiralty's Secret Memorandum to Canada, 20 August 1912
  • Borden's Naval Aid Bill, 1912
  • 1914 Panama Canal Protocol
• Mobilisation and the War's Beginnings
  • Mobilisation of the Royal Australian Navy
    • RAN Op Order Number 1
  • Mobilisation of the Royal Canadian Navy
  • Mobilisation of the Royal Navy
    • Mobilisation of the Fleet
    • Who was Responsible
  • German Naval Operations, August 1914
  • Potential Raids by German Battlecruisers
  • 1st Canadian Troop Convoy, October 1914
  • Russian Volunteer Fleet
• Tsingtao Campaign, 1914
  • Tsingtao and the German Far East Squadron
  • The Campaign, a paper by Colin Denis
  • Wakamiya Maru at Tsingtao by John Parkinson
• Mediterranean Theater, 1914
  • Escape of Goeben and Breslau - a discourse.
  • Turkey Enters the War and British Actions a paper by Geoffrey Miller
• The Adriatic
  • World War I in the Adriatic
    An external link to Michael Phillip's excellent Maritime History Index site, this hosts a series of articles by Phillips and and Erwin F. Sieche. Well worth visiting!
  • Austro-Hungarian Squadron, 7 August 1914
    The ships of the Austro-Hungarian squadron which sortied in case the German Goeben and Breslau were to enter the Adriatic.
  • Austro-Hungarian Attacks on the Otranto Barrage
    A table listing the various attacks by the Austro-Hungarian Navy against the net/mine barrier intended to stop the egress of U-boats from the Adriatic.
  • French Naval Operations, Engagements and Ship Losses by Erwin Sieche
• The Dardanelles / Gallipoli
  • The Dardanelles Campaign: A Historical Analogy for Littoral Mine Warfare, an outside link to the paper by E. Michael Golda in the Naval War College Review.
  • Anzac Corps (an outside link)
  • Sea power at Suvla, August 1915: Naval aspects of the Suvla Bay landings and the genesis of modern amphibious warfare an outside link to the paper by Ric Pelvin, hosted by the Imperial War Museum
  • Watercolour of HMS Albion
• Naval War in Africa
  • Lake Tanganyika
    A discussion of the battle for the control of the lake and the tiny warships HMS Mimi, Fifi, andTutu
• The German Raiders
  • The Cruise of SMS Emden
    (a link to the Documents section of WWI_WWW)
• Submarines, the War on Merchant Shipping, and Assorted Statistics
  • Losing the Initiative in Mercantile Warfare: Great Britain's Surprising Failure to Anticipate Maritime Challenges to Her Global Trading Network in the First World War (an external link to the International Journal of Naval History)
  • Submarine Losses 1914-1918
    • German, including information on new construction
    • Austro-Hungarian
    • British Commonwealth
    • Losses in the Mediterranean, all Navies
  • German Declaration 4 February, 1915
  • von Holtzendorff's Memo, 22 December 1916
  • von Hindenburg's Telegram to Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, 23 December 1916
  • "Treatment of Armed Merchantment"
    (a link to the Documents section of WWI_WWW)
  • "Wilson on the 'Sussex' Case"
    (a link to the Documents section of WWI_WWW)
  • Abbreviations used for RN convoys
  • "Introduction of Convoys" - a discussion
  • Import Statistics 1913-1917
  • Merchant Shipping Losses 1914-1918
  • Merchant Vessels Launched 1914-1918
  • British Empire Gains/Losses by Month
  • Employment of Allied Tonnage October 1918
  • Ships Convoyed, Losses, and Independents
  • Numbers Sunk in Each Quarter, 1917-1918
  • Analysis of Losses by Enemy Action
  • A/S Escorts Available for Ocean Convoy, 1917-1918
  • Scale of Destroyer Escort for Convoys 1917-1918
  • Royal Dutch Shell Casualties
  • Plan "BCR" Against German Battlecruiser Raids in the North Atlantic, 1918
  • WW1 Mines and Minesweeping off Ceylon
  • How Successfully Did the British Respond? a paper by Len Barnett
  • US Merchant Ships Lost During WW1 (an external link to the US Merchant Marine website)
• Shipping Data
  • Harvest Project - a database of all engine-powered ships, 1865-1925, based on data contained in Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping. This is a project being undertaken at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand.as of December, 2000 this site appears to be offline
• Transport of American Troops Overseas
  • "US troops transported: 1917-1918"
  • The Bridge to France - the complete text of the book written by Edward H. Hurley, Wartime Chairman of the United States Shipping Board
    (a link to the Documents section of WWI_WWW)
• Operations in the Caspian 1918-1920
  • RN Operations in the Caspian 1918-1920
• The End of the War
  • Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Status of the Russian Fleet
    (a link to the Documents section of WWI_WWW - The Complete Treaty of Brest-Litovsk)
  • "Operation ZZ" - the Surrender of the German Fleet, 21 November 1918
  • Fates of the Surviving Ships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy
  • The Scuttling of the German Fleet in Scapa Flow, 21 June 1919
  • The Guns and Armour of Scapa Flow
    An outside link to a site with superb underwater photography of the wrecks.

People and Personalities

Information on those who served (of all ranks), as well as biographical information on the more famous.

Sources of Information

• "Records of British Seamen and Ships"
• Places to Look
• RN Shore Establishments
• RN Hulks Overseas, 1800-1976
• The RN's Pembroke Dockyard

Life at Sea

• "The Laws of the Navy"
• "Time and Hammocks"
• Military Abbreviations (an external link)
• The Popular Image of the Sailor
  • "Naval Manoeuvres"
  • The Fringes of the Fleet by Rudyard Kipling
• The Imperial German Navy
  • "The Kaiser's Coolies"
  • Imperial German Navy Anthem
  • Imperial German Navy Flag Officers, 1914-1918
  • High Seas Fleet Battle Squadron Commanders, 1914-1918
  • Capital Ship Captains
  • Scouting Group Commanders
  • Ship Nicknames
  • "Aye Aye" In the IGN
• The Royal Navy
  • King George V's Visits to Scapa Flow
  • The First + Last Commonwealth Casualties
  • Royal Navy + US Navy Branch Colours
  • Royal Navy (and British Army) "Distinction" Lace
  • Royal Navy Flag Officers, 1914-1918
  • Sample Service Records
• The Royal Canadian Navy
  • Officers of HMCS Rainbow, 1910
  • Canadian Naval Recruiting 1914-1918
  • Recruiting Requirements in the Royal Naval Canadian Volunteer Reserve
  • Officers of the Royal Canadian Navy,1918
  • Royal Canadian Medical Service
  • Mens' Numbering Scheme, for the RCN's Lower Deck (an external link)
• The United States Navy
  • WW1 Recruiting Posters (an outside link to the Naval Historical Centre)
  • North Sea Days - the complete book, describing the USS Texas's time with the Grand Fleet
• Merchant Seamen
  • Granting of the British Mercantile Maritime Medal
• Memorials and Cemeteries
  • Merchant Navy Memorial (Liverpool, UK)
  • Lyness Cemetery, Scapa Flow
  • Zeebrugge Memorial on the Mersey
  • Remains of HMAS Sydney
  • Royal Naval Division Monument

Biographies

• Captain James Dick, RN
• John Saumarez Dumaresq, RN/RAN
• Commander Kyosuke Eto, Imperial Japanese Navy
• Charles Fryatt, Captain of the S.S. Brussels
• Jellicoe's Leadership
• Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak
• Admiral Sir Percy Scott
• Admiral Souchon
• Lieutenant William Lowell Thompson, RNVR
• Admiral of the Fleet Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt
• Michel E. T. D. Vlasto, RN, who served in the RN at Coronel and the Falkands (an external link)
• U-boat Ace Georg Ritter von Trapp, an external link to Österreichs Bundesheer
  (as of January 2002, this link only points to the Bundesheer homepage)
• These are some of the entries contained in the WW1-WWW Biographical Dictionary
  • Battenburg, Prince Louis of
  • Beatty, Admiral Sir David
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
  • Fisher, Admiral-of-the-Fleet Sir John
  • Jellicoe, Admiral-of-the-Fleet Sir John
  • Müller, Kapitän zur See Karl
  • Scheer, Admiral Rheinhard
  • von Tirpitz, Grand Admiral Alfred
  • Troubridge, Admiral Sir Ernest
  • Weddigen, Otto
  • Wemyss, Admiral-of-the-Fleet Rosslyn

Links to Other Websites

A handful of useful links relating to Naval/Maritime History. There are other websites devoted to keeping a more complete collection (notably that of Lars Bruzelius) - these are just some of the ones which have caught the webmaster's eye.

MARHST-L

One of the best places to go if you have an interest in Maritime History is the "MARHST-L" listserver. There are several hundred contributors world-wide, including some noted maritime historians and well-known authors. To join, send an e-mail to the software (no subject required), just the text "subscribe MARHST-L" as the first message line to Marhst-L, LISTSERV@POST.QUEENSU.CA.

Click Here for a list of Other Sites

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April, 2001	April, 2002