Private Papers of Commander F H H Goodhart DSO AM RN

Two very detailed ms diaries, each with ts transcript (269pp in all) kept during his command of the submarine HMS E8 (August 1915 - December 1916) and describing her passage from Harwich to Revel in Estonia for attachment to the Imperial Russian Navy and her subsequent employment on patrols in the Baltic (August - November 1915 and May - November 1916) including successful attacks on a German merchant ship and the cruiser PRINZ ADALBERT in October 1915 and with interesting entries on technical problems in the maintenance of his submarine, the professional qualities and personalities of the other British submariners in the Baltic, notably Commander (later Admiral Sir Noel) Laurence, Commander (later Admiral Sir Max) Horton and Commander (later Captain) F N A Cromie RN, and the disagreements between Laurence and Horton, factors affecting the morale of the officers and men of the British submarines in the Baltic, visits by Rear Admiral (later Admiral Sir Richard) Phillimore, the British liaison officer at Imperial Russian HQ, the loss of E18 in the Baltic (May 1916), the attitudes of the Russian Navy and its officers, the Tsar Nicholas II's visit to Revel (November 1915), trips by Goodhart and other British submariners to Petrograd, Moscow and, in February - March 1916, to the Russian Black Sea Fleet and SW (Caucasus) Army, and his observations on civilian conditions and political opinion in Russia; together with five related ms letters (all with transcripts) to his family, November 1915 - December 1916, and one ms letter (23pp, with 17pp ts transcript) describing at length his patrols off Heligoland and in the North Sea in August - September 1914, including the Battle of the Heligoland Bight; and the warrants accompanying his orders and decorations and his next of kin memorial scroll following his death in the submarine HMS K13 in January 1917.

Catalogue date 1992-12

Cataloguer RWAS