Lt.Cmdr. B. Warlow

Lt Cdr Ben Warlow (1938-2023) was a Supply Officer in the Royal Navy from 1958 to the late 1990s and served much time at sea, including in two wars. It was my privilege to serve with him from 1973-75 in the commando carrier HMS Bulwark (1948 -converted to the commando role late 1950s). In 1983-84, Ben was given six months, in between appointments, to write this short history of the Supply and Secretariat Branch of the Royal Navy - this book is the result.

The Supply and Secretariat Branch of post-Second World War times, more commonly known as the Supply Branch, is now called the Logistics Branch. A Purser is first mentioned in the fourteenth century but there was no formal Royal Navy until national navies started to appear in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries - the King's Ships had become the Royal Navy and, arguably, the naval officer - and the naval profession - was in being from 1660, the time of Samuel Pepys in the Admiralty.

Ships have been going to war for some 2,600 years and, for however long, and in whoever's service, the officers and men onboard needed food, drink and supplies. This is the business of the Purser in one form or another but that person may sometimes just have been the Cook, with others having responsibility for 'storing ship' and provisioning.

Ben has written the story of the branch that provides support in England's (later the UK's) ships of war, and in warships - food (victualling), drink, stores, pay, cash, administration, personnel records, naval law and more. My old boss tells the story well, with detail where necessary, and broad brush to move the story along and so as not to bog the general reader down.

Privately published by the Royal Navy in 1984, seldom are copies for sale online but there are copies in the relevant libraries. Nearly forty years on from his work being printed, it's time to bring the story up-to-date ...… (mehr)

I have a copy signed by the author, for Ben Warlow (born 1938) was my training officer when I was a Midshipman in HMS Bulwark in 1973. I know the publisher too. It therefore does not please me to write any criticism in this review bur criticise I must, if I am to be honest here.

The book is essentially a photograph album of Royal Navy destroyers, one large photograph a page, with a few lines of text accompanying each one.

I did not like the text - the Editor's notes, really an introduction - being one page here and one page there, spread over four pages, 2, 30, 51 and 72 - the introduction should have been on pages 2 to 6 and nowhere else!

A pet hate with photographs of ships in books is that all too often the photo is cropped such that the bow or stern, or both, sometimes the top of a mast, is part missing. There are a number of such photographs in this book, and it's annoying!

Most of the photographs are fine but a number of the reproductions of wartime destroyers are dark and poorly reproduced. Of course, if the original photograph was poor and the book contains a faithful - and best - reproduction of the original photograph, then I'd say that the photograph should not have been used and another sourced. Three or four are really poor reproductions and make a nonsense of the author pointing out detail when it is impossible to see that detail at all.

Ben Warlow's choice of photographs is generally good but in one case not - included are photographs of seven of the eight County Class destroyers (why so many photographs, it's hard to tell) and the only one not depicted is my first ship, HMS Hampshire.

With over eighty photographs of different destroyers, the book afforded the chance to show destroyers undertaking various roles and in different circumstances but the opportunity was mostly missed. There are photographs of destroyers underway, at speed and not so, at anchor, in company with other ships, firing guns and missiles, and an uncompleted ship in a dry dock undergoing trials before scrapping. Inevitably, the best photographs of a ship, any ship, when one wants to see the detail, is one taken on a fine day in a calm sea or calm coastal waters but it is good to see the photograph of HMS Scorpion in heavy weather (page 42).

It would have been good were the caption for the photograph of HMS Cheviot (page 27) shows her as Leader of the 8th Destroyer Flotilla (indicated by the black top to the funnel and the number 8) and, on the next page, HMS Chaplet wears a band on her funnel that she indicates she is the Half Leader of her flotilla (no number on the funnel, though). HMS Undaunted (page 60) shows her as Leader of the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla. Destroyer Flotilla Leaders traditionally did not wear a pennant number on the hull, whereas the seven other ships in the flotilla did do so. A Leader was a Captain's command - he was known as D8 or D2, for example - and a Half Leader was a Commander's command, the other ships generally commanded by a Lieutenant Commander, in the post-war years seldom by a Lieutenant. The junior destroyer in the flotilla was known as the 'canteen boat', inevitably winning more of the less popular chores tasked to destroyers.

A book like this afforded a golden opportunity to show destroyers over 55 years doing the varied work that was their business. There is a photograph of HMS Creole dressed overall but the reader is not told why. I would like to have seen photographs of destroyers under construction on the Clyde, say, in 1945, of a destroyer being launched - there is at least one of a destroyer on builder's trials - a destroyer's commissioning ceremony, a destroyer in action in the Second World War and in the Falklands War (there is a photograph of the burnt out HMS Sheffield), a destroyer on a high-profile foreign port visit, a destroyer escort with HMY Britannia, a destroyer escorting an aircraft carrier as plane guard (before those duties were take over by helicopters), a destroyer in dry dock for repair (with a picture taken from the bottom of the dry dock), destroyers laid up in the reserve fleet, a destroyer at the scrapyard. There is a photograph of HMS Norfolk flying the flag of a Rear Admiral but no mention of the flag or the flag officer. There is a photograph of HMS Tyrian at the Coronation Fleet Review in 1953 but no mention of where it is (Spithead) and no mention of the the submarine to starboard. Indeed, all photograph that show other ships or prominent features, should include something about them or it in the caption - the Forth Bridge not mentioned in the photograph of HMS Fife (page 78), for example (not everyone will know the bridge). Birkenhead is mentioned in the photograph of HMS Virago (page 55) and Dartmouth in the photograph of HMS Carron (page 23). There is a photograph of a destroyer at sea alongside a US battleship for jackstay transfer but none of a destroyer undertaking replenishment from a tanker or stores ship (a RAS(L) or RAS(S)). A couple of photographs of the inside of destroyers would have been good but, at least, one can visit HMS Cavalier at Chatham (strangely, no photo of that destroyer or mention of her as a museum ship). The two photographs of HMS Matapan (pages 37 and 71) should have been cross-referenced.

Nevertheless, there is much to enjoy in many of the photographs in this book and, I am glad to ay, there is an index. Thanks Ben!… (mehr)

I posted this review on the Amazon website on 6 Nov 2013:

A comprehensive summary of all the named shore establishments and static ships of the Royal Navy from the beginning of the 19th Century. The aim of the book is to fill a significant gap that existed in reference works and that is certainly does. A huge amount of research has led to this very detailed volume that will be of interest and use to naval historians, local historians and family historians alike.

The first Royal Navy 'stone frigate' was HMS Diamond Rock, an island off Martinique commissioned as HM Sloop on 18 Jan 1804 (passing RN ships still fire an 11-gun salute!). Another island, commissioned in 1811, was HMS Anholt off Denmark. Each of these ship names - and there are some 3,000 entries and each is a 'ship' name with its own history, illuminating the annals of the history of both the Royal Navy and the United Kingdom.

Prior to the end of the Victorian era naval shore establishments were rare, bar of course the Admiralty in London and HM Dockyards. Old ships from the Age of Sail, mostly Ships of the Line, were reduced to hulks at the end of their days and many were used as training ships, accommodation ships and store ships in their 'retirement', in the backwaters of naval ports, sometimes keeping the same names, sometimes given a completely new name. It is thus that the Fifth Rate HMS Trincomalee (1817) was later HMS Foudroyant, a common sight as a hulk in Portsmouth Harbour for much of the Twentieth Century, was saved for the nation and now preserved at Hartlepool.

During the Second World War the Admiralty requisitioned a large number of establishments as manpower increased to not far short of a million. Many of these were given a Roman numeral suffix, such as HMS President V, which was Highgate School, London N6, the training school for accountant branch ratings from 1941-44.

RN Air Stations are also commissioned with HM Ship names, usually those of birds, such as HMS Peregrine, the name of RNAS Ford, in Sussex, now an open prison. Also included are the intended names, where known, so as to complete the record, such as HMS Chough for RNAS Culdrose, commissioned as HMS Seahawk in 1947.

Ben Warlow has done a great service with this book. Behind the names in its pages are thousands of stories and each enriches the fascinating story of the Royal Navy which is, in essence, the story of the British people and, to a considerable extent, the English-speaking world.… (mehr)