If a sailor survived, it can be more difficult to trace him.  You need to know which ship or shore establishment he served with, and when.  It would have been usual for sailors to serve on more than one vessel, and they would also have spent some time at a naval base on land.  You may already have information about this, or you might have paperwork or family lore that will help you.  This information is crucial and you will need to find this out before you can proceed further.  The easiest way is to obtain your relative’s personal service record.

Official documentation, such as operational records, unit diaries and ships’ logs can be found at The National Archives. The most relevant Admiralty files are ADM 1, ADM 116 and ADM 137 for First World War operational records and unit reports, and ADM 1, ADM 116 and ADM 199 for those issued during the Second World War. Convoy records for the Second World War are to be found in ADM 199, ships’ logs in ADM 53, and submarine logs in ADM 173.

We have acquired photocopies of a typescript set of Ships’ Histories compiled by the Ministry of Defence Naval Historical Branch.  These provide a brief summary of service and although they do vary in detail there is more information on those vessels which saw service during the Second World War.  These will shortly be digitised and available for public access on this website, but in the meantime, if you enter the name of the ship you are interested in here, you may be able to find a photograph or other material relating to it.

Publications can provide you with some basic information on each vessel.  The various published official histories are excellent sources of information, for example:

Ships of the Royal Navy: the Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy by J.J. Colledge (revised by Ben Warlow: London: Greenhill Books, 2003)

Jane’s Fighting Ships (annual publication)

If a ship sank, there are a number of publications that will enable you to find out more details, and these include:

Dictionary of Disasters at Sea during the Age of Steam…, 1824-1962 by Charles Hocking (London: Lloyds, 1969)

British Vessels Lost at Sea, 1914-18 and 1939-45 [facsimile reprints of four HMSO official publications] (Wellingborough, Northants.: Patrick Stephens, 1988)

Britain’s Sea War: a Diary of Ship Losses, 1939-1945 by John M. Young (Wellingborough, Northamptonshire: Patrick Stephens, 1989)   

Ships’ magazines and newsletters can also provide some illuminating details of life in the service and aboard ship, as can autobiographies.  It can be difficult to find out about the activities of naval personnel based ashore because more information has been written about front line service.  Warlow’s Shore Establishments of the Royal Navy is useful for working out where a relative might have served on land. 

There are a number of Old Comrades Associations, and it may be possible to make contact with people who might remember the relative you are trying to trace:

The Royal Naval Association
HMS Nelson
Portsmouth
Hampshire PO1 3HH
tel: 02392 294228
website: http://www.royal-naval-association.co.uk/

Two useful institutions that may also be able to help you further are the:

National Maritime Museum
Romney Road, Greenwich, London SE10 9NF
Tel: 020 8858 4422
Web-site: www.nmm.ac.uk

Royal Naval Museum
HM Naval Base (PP66), Portsmouth, Hampshire PO1 3NH
Tel: 023 9272 7562
Web-site: www.royalnavalmuseum.org 

If you are interested in finding out what life was like aboard ship, you may wish to visit HMS Belfast, moored on the River Thames.