Naval history

I have been reading several books on the lives of Englishmen who became commodores of the Cunard line. These are fascinating as the books start off, as the youngsters going to see in windjammers, then into the age of steam, finishing in the more modern vessels of today.

The 2 mariners saw service during the WW1 as merchant sailors enrolled into the royal naval reservists, one of the chaps was in the first ship to arrive to assist the stricken Titanic, and the 2 chaps saw service during WW2 also as reservists.

The names of the 2 are Sir James Bisset, and Henry Grattidge. Unfortunately, the books are out of print but are to be found in the 2nd hand book sphere.

The merchant navy had appalling losses particularly during WW1 until a workable response to the German U boat was developed.

 

The sonar was indeed a remarkable invention I think for the WW2 rather than WW1.....depth charges helped in the latter part of the WW1 conflict.

I found it interesting that Britain had quite a fleet of windjammers still about , but these provided the U boat with easy targets, consequently most of these ships were sunk by the end of the conflict.

Radio was still a novelty pre WW1 and many ships did not have these in situ, which was highlighted in the Titanic disaster. Those ships that had them, mostly only had one radio operator who turned in to bed at the usual times, which was the prime reason assistance was delayed in the case of Titanic.

Radio was also lagging in the early aeronautical sphere, with tragic crashes making changes to outdated regulations. Humans seem to learn only after tragedy.:BangHead: