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Description: | Ms journal (ca 225pp), begun in 1919 with a retrospective account of his service as an able seaman from August 1918 to February 1919 in HMS ORIANA (4th Destroyer Flotilla based on Plymouth except when she was attached to the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla based on Rosyth in October - November 1918) and principally recording her deployment on convoy escort duties in the English Channel, with a very interesting description of ORIANA's rescue of survivors when the RMS GALWAY CASTLE was torpedoed on 12 September, and references to Armistice Day celebrations at Rosyth and King George V's visit to the Grand Fleet on 20 November; but mainly comprising a contemporary daily record of his service as an able seaman between February 1919 and January 1921 in HMS CARADOC (3rd Light Cruiser Squadron, Mediterranean Fleet) which was deployed in the Black Sea from April 1919 to June 1920 in support of the Volunteer Army opposing the Bolsheviks, with accounts of bombardments of Bolshevik positions in the Crimea, evacuations of White Russians in the Crimea in 1919 and from Novorossisk and ports on the Caucasian and Georgian coasts as their military situation deteriorated in 1920, atrocities committed by the Bolsheviks and conditions in general in the principal Black Sea ports; and more briefly during CARADOC's service as SNO Egypt based on Port Said and Alexandria (July - December 1920), her refit at Gibraltar (December 1920 - January 1921) and his passage to the United Kingdom in the seaplane carrier HMS VINDICTIVE (February 1921). Among the various items inserted in the journal is the breakfast menu from the GALWAY CASTLE for the morning on which she was torpedoed.
Cataloguer RWAS
Catalogue date 2003-10 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Hemsley, A F | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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