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Description: | 958 prints in 5 albums covering the Royal Navy service of Engineer Commander William John McGhee. The photographs are dated between 1912-1935.
Album 1: Service aboard HMS SOUTHAMPTON (1912-1917). The album contains a photograph of the ship's company taken in 1915 and a number of individual and group photographs of officers and engineering staff including Commodore W E Goodenough (Captain of the ship), Chief and Engine Room Artificers (ERAs) (December 1914 and 1916-17), Engine Room Staff (December 1915). Group photographs of other members of the crew cover the diving staff (including them at work), a concert party at Gibraltar (1913), the ship's brass and string bands (1916), a gun crew ready for action, Warrant Officers (including a man wounded during the Battle of Jutland, 1916) and Petty Officers during picnics at Oban and Colonsay (1913). There is also a photograph of HMS SOUTHAMPTON's cats, Peter, Fourpence and Ginger. A final group photograph shows Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty with captains of light cruisers (16 December 1915): Commodore W.E. Goodenough (HMS SOUTHAMPTON), Rear Admiral Napier and Captain Edwards (HMS FALMOUTH), Captain Cameron (HMS PHAETON), Captain Miller (HMS NOTTINGHAM), Captain Duff (HMS BIRMINGHAM), Captain Beamish (HMS CORDELIA), Captain Reeves (HMS BIRKENHEAD), Captain Kennedy (HMS LOWESTOFT), Commodore Sinclair (HMS GALATEA), Captain Thesiger (HMS INCONSTANT), Captain Pratt (HMS YARMOUTH). There are also views of the warships HMS AGINCOURT, HMS BARHAM, HMS CAMPANIA, HMS CANADA, HMS EMPEROR OF INDIA, HMS HUMBER (Monitor), HMS INVINCIBLE, HMS IRON DUKE, HMS MALAYA, HMS REPULSE, HMS REVENGE, HMS SOUTHAMPTON, HMS SUPERB and HMS TIGER. The liner OLYMPIC is also depicted (Spithead, 1914). Pre-WWI photographs include a number taken at Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said and during crew sight-seeing trips to Pompeii and the Pyramids. There are also images of the Spithead Naval Review of 1914 and the Kiel Yachting Regatta (24 June 1914), the latter include the Kaiser's yacht METEOR and guard boat SHEPNER. For WWI a number of photographs show parts of the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow and Rosyth. Operations are also covered: the sinking of SMS MAINZ (28 August 1914), patrols in the North Sea, minelaying with HMS ABDIEL, the checking of neutral merchant ships, wartime exercises and the Battle of Jutland (11" shells falling round HMS SOUTHAMPTON - as taken from HMS NOTTINGHAM, damage to HMS SOUTHAMPTON, auction of the belongings of men killed in action) Scenes on board HMS SOUTHAMPTON include coaling ship, sending up a target kite for anti-aircraft gunnery practice, jujitsu and boxing tournaments (September 1915 and October 1916), gunnery target towing, the issue of soap and tobacco to the crew, members of the crew bathing and 'testing' a Carley Float (life raft). Crew members are also shown tending their vegetable garden (ca.1917) and engaged in a snowball fight at Broome Hall Park (January 1915).
Album 2: Service aboard HMS SUPERB 1917-1921, HMS CENTURION 1921 and HMS STURDY 1922-1923. Included are photographs of the Captain, Ward Room Officers, Engineer Officers, Chief and ERAs of HMS SUPERB (1918 and 1919) and officers and midshipmen of HMS CENTURION (1921). There are also photographs of the Turkish Grand Vizier meeting Admiral Calthorpe (17 March 1919), White Russian officials on board HMS SUPERB at Sevastopol (November 1918) and the King of Greece on board SUPERB (15 March 1919). A group photograph of British prisoners and internees returning from Bolshevik capture is also included. Warships covered by the album are: HMS ARGUS (1923), HMS CERES, HMS EMPEROR OF INDIA (Malta 1921), HMS FURIOUS (before and after conversion to aircraft carrier), HMS RESOLUTION (Malta, 1920), HMS STURDY (1923), HMS SUPERB (Mudros, October 1918), and the Russian battleship VOLYA (on way to internment at Izmid, April 1919). The following German warships scuttled at Scapa Flow are also covered: SMS HINDERBURG, SMS NURNBURG, SMS V 127, SMS V 128 and SMS S 54. There is also a photograph of the RIVER CLYDE (used to land troops at Gallipoli) at Malta following her salvage and repair (March 1920). Events covered in the album include the voyage of HMS SUPERB from the Firth of Forth to the Eastern Mediterranean (August 1918) and subsequent voyage of British warships up the Dardanelles to Constantinople, the activity of British intervention forces at Sevastopol (1918-19), British Mediterranean Fleet off Turkey (Constantinople, Izmid, Smyrna, visits to Suvla Bay and Sedd el Bahr Fort - 1920-1921), surrender of the German High Seas Fleet (21 November 1918). Early flying trials from HMS FURIOUS (including the death of Commander Dunning - wreckage of his aircraft and his memorial tablet). Coaling ship at Port Said (HMS SUPERB) and Grand Fleet tactical exercises in the North Sea towards the end of WWI are also included.
Album 3: Service aboard HMS VECTIS (1923-1926), HMS HERMES (1926-1929), HMS SAUMAREZ (1929-1930) and HMS KEPPEL (1930-1931). This album includes a group photograph of the officers of HMS VECTIS (1924) and photographs recording the visit to HMS HERMES of the King and Queen of Siam (1929). Warships covered: HMS BERWICK, HMS GLORIOUS (February 1930), HMS KEMPENFELT (Kiel Canal, 1933), HMS SAUMAREZ, HMS VECTIS (including - in dock without funnels, and on board details), the Japanese battleship MUTSU and a quarter scale sailing model of HMS VICTORY (1935). Locations include Stockholm (visit of VII Destroyer Flotilla, June 1924), Colombo (1926), British North Borneo (including sequence of photographs taken on a rubber plantation, 1926), Penang (1927), Bangkok (includes lunch on board HMS HERMES for British residents, 1929), Singapore (1929), Malta (1930) and RN establishments around Plymouth (Barracks at Devonport, RN College at Dartmouth, Stonehouse Naval Hospital) also a naval and military review at Plymouth Hoe (May 1935). The album also contains a number of images relating to naval exercises (destroyer torpedo attacks, IX Flotilla mass attack on wireless controlled target ship CENTURION, destroyers - including HMS VANITY and HMS VALOROUS - making smokescreens to mask battle fleet). Finally, there are images of the state funeral of Edward VII, showing the first time naval ratings were used to pull the gun carriage bearing the coffin (20 May 1910).
Album 4: Service aboard HMS HERMES (1926-1929). Included is a group photograph of the engineering officers along with informal, individual images of various officers from the ship. There are also photographs recording the visit of the King and Queen of Siam to the HERMES (February 1928). Warships depicted in the album are HMS CUMBERLAND, HMS HERMES and HMS VINDICTIVE. Locations covered are: Hong Kong (dockyard, Victoria, Peak Hotel, Naval Sanatorium, Peninsula Hotel, Queen's Square etc), Kowloon dockyard, Shanghai (1926-1928), Singapore, Colombo (British Club), Aden, Port Said and the Suez Canal, Malta (Calafrana air station) and Gibraltar. Images of Naval aviation are also included: Fairey IIIFs and Flycatchers in flight in the Far East, deck landings and take offs, wreckage of crashed aircraft on the flightdeck of HERMES and aircraft ditched in the sea. In addition, there are photographs covering two funerals of aircrew: Lt Aldridge at Wei Hai Wei cemetery (killed landing a Fairey Flycatcher, June 1928) and Flying Officer Hales, Lt Graham, Telegraphist Jackson at Happy Valley cemetery in Hong Kong (killed in the crash of a Fairey IIIF). Also of interest are images of naval participation in anti-piracy operations at Bias Bay (1927-1928). These show an RN landing party coming ashore, captured pirates and their subsequent execution. There is also coverage of ratings from a naval brigade marching through the Chinese quarter of Hong Kong during the Shanghai Crisis of the late 1920s. Finally, there are numerous off-duty scenes and views of the local Chinese population in Hong Kong and Wei Hai Wei.
Album 5: This covers 1926-1934 and mainly contains 'tourist' type view of people and places visited by McGhee during these years including: Hong Kong and Kowloon (harbours, Happy Valley race track, local housing, temples, sampans and junks, 1926 floods), Wei Hai Wei, Shanghai (Nanking Road, race track, war memorial, Soochow Creek), Vesseltown (British North Borneo), Corfu, Haifa, Kotor, Majorca, Nazareth, Rome, Sibenik, Trieste, Venice, Naples. Events of interest include a protest by Chinese students and their subsequent punishment by the Chinese authorities (1927), The Mediterranean Destroyer Command spring cruise (1932), Rear Admiral F F Rose leaving Malta after relinquishing command of the Mediterranean destroyers (January 1934), Royal Sovereign Class battleships in a heavy sea of Gibraltar (January 1933) and a parade (naval review) of ratings at Marsa (24 May 1932). Photographs of the following ships are included: HMS ACHATES, HMS ACHERON, HMS ACTIVE, HMS ARROW, HMS BASILISK, HMS BOADICEA, HMS BRAZEN, HMS CENTURION (entering Grand Harbour, Malta, after towing HMS TOBAGO from Constantinople - TOBAGO and attendant tugs in background), HMS COVENTRY, HMS DEFENDER, HMS DIANA, HMS SANDHURST (repair ship) and HMS SUPERB. There are also the following group photographs: Officers of HMS HERMES, Ship's companies of HMS CENTURION (1921) and HMS HERMES. A solo portrait photograph of Engineer Captain G D Campbell DSO (Squadron Engineer Officer, Mediterranean Destroyers) is included. The album concludes with the badges of the ships that formed the Mediterranean Destroyer Command (1st, 3rd and 4th Flotillas). | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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