29 July 2024
100 years of Commonwealth War Graves Naval Memorials
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Commonwealth War Graves’ major naval memorials.
Discover what they are, who they commemorate, and why they were built today.
Commonwealth War Graves Naval Memorials
Three of the Commission’s largest UK war memorials
The three Commonwealth War Graves naval memorials are some of the largest points of commemoration in the UK.
Together, the memorials at Plymouth, Chatham and Portsmouth commemorate some 66,500 Commonwealth men and women who served in the Royal Navy during the World Wars with no known grave but the sea.
Each is a unique reminder of the trials, tribulations and sacrifices made by tens of thousands of people from across the Commonwealth performing vital naval duties essential to the war effort.
For a century now, each CWGC navy memorial has been standing solemnly on the waterfront of important UK maritime centres. This is their story.
A Maritime Empire at War
Image: A British Convoy on its way to Russia, 1942 (© IWM (Art.IWM ART LD 2682))
As an island nation with a global empire, the United Kingdom relied heavily on the strength of the Royal Navy in the World Wars.
With its powerful fleet and well-trained motivated personnel, the Royal Navy diligently patrolled the world’s oceans, performing a mixture of important wartime duties.
It is ship-to-ship combat with vessels coming broadsides and exchanging fire, like the Battle of Jutland, that grabs the popular imagination, but the Royal Navy’s World War duties were many and varied, including:
- Convoy protection
- Troop transportation
- Blockading enemy ports and shipping lanes
- Hunting hostile freight
- Fire support for major operations
- Mine laying & clearing
Despite their training, confidence, and skill, as well as being equipped with the world’s cutting-edge battleships, Royal Navy sailors’ work was long, tiring, and dangerous.
The high seas held many dangers.
From enemy U-boats lurking beneath the waves to hostile ships and aircraft above them, mines, torpedoes, and everything in between, man-made horrors could strike and cripple a Royal Navy vessel in combat.
Then there were the elements themselves. In wartime, the Royal Navy didn’t just have to contend with enemy navies.
Weather could and still does present many dangers for seafarers, from hidden shoals to tropical storms, crashing waves, grinding ice, and more hazards of the natural world.
All of the above could cause damage to even the sturdiest Royal Navy warship, or sweep unsuspecting men from the decks into the waters below.
Over 45,000 men and women died serving in the Royal Navy during the First World War.
Another 60,000 personnel died in naval service in World War Two.
A puzzle of commemoration
Image: Scene aboard the coastal minelayer HMS Plover as she departs for sea carrying the body of Captain Jack Grant Bickford DSO, who was killed around HMS Express (Image: © IWM (A 682))
Naval casualties presented a problem to Imperial War Graves Commission and Admiralty figures during and after the First World War.
Land warfare, like the fighting on the Western Front, led to the creation of improvised burial grounds and cemeteries close to where servicemen were initially buried close to where they fell.
After the war, many of these sites were either expanded or incorporated into newly built CWGC war cemeteries, i.e., easily accessible permanent points of commemoration.
Navy casualties did not lend themselves to such an approach. The vast majority of those who lost their lives in naval service were committed to the deep or went down with their ships.
Recovering their remains was sadly not possible.
The Commission was determined to find an appropriate way to commemorate by name each of the men and women of the Royal Navy killed in the First World War with no known grave but the sea.
Naval memorials to Commemorate naval casualties
Image: One of architect Sir Robert Lorimer's original sketches for the Plymouth Naval Memorial from the CWGC archive
The solution was the construction of three great naval memorials situated in important maritime locations in the UK.
Massive bronze panels incorporated into monumental stone memorials would list each of the sailors’ names to offer a true permanent point of commemoration for those souls lost at sea.
This was in keeping with the Commission’s approach for the commemoration of Army and Air Forces personnel with no known grave.
Casualties whose graves are not known are commemorated by name on CWGC war memorials. The original idea was to give loved ones a permanent place to mourn their fallen relatives: “he is not missing, he is here!”
So, this same philosophy was applied to the naval memorials. But this did present another challenge: where to build them?
Often, cemeteries and memorials were either situated in their original location, or close to where the men fought and fell. For example, the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme sits on a prominent stretch of the former Somme battlefield.
It wasn’t so simple when it came to commemorating Navy casualties. The Royal Navy battlefield was the world’s seas and oceans, instead of a section of northern France or the middle eastern desert.
The Admiralty came up with the solution. A memorial would be constructed at each of the Royal Navy’s three “manning ports”.
When someone joined the Royal Navy, they were assigned to a “manning port” for administrative purposes. In the UK, the three manning ports were:
- Plymouth
- Portsmouth
- Chatham
Each city also had a long, historic connection to the Royal Navy, making them the ideal sites for new commemorative sites.
Designing the Naval Memorials
Image: One of the sculptures adorning the Portsmouth Naval Memorial
Sir Robert Lorimer was appointed the Commission’s Principal Architect for Italy, Macedonia and Egypt in September 1918. Over 30 cemeteries and memorials were designed by Lorimer across these regions.
In June 1921, Lorimer was appointed Principal Architect for the United Kingdom. Part of his expanded remit was to lead the design of the new naval memorials at Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Chatham.
The Naval Memorials are nearly identical in design, built around the central dominating obelisk. Recalling the typical forms of lighthouses and the Pharos of classical antiquity, each memorial was envisioned as a clear and obvious landmark to aid shipping as the sailors returned home.
The obelisk is topped with a globe, representing the global reach of the Royal Navy and the myriad nationalities present in its ranks during wartime.
Each site features additional maritime-themed sculpture by Henry Poole, including pieces heavily inspired by the mythology of the ancient world and gods like Neptune, enhancing the overall nautical feel of the location.
Unveiling the Naval Memorials
Chatham was the first Naval Memorial to be unveiled in a ceremony attended by thousands of Royal Navy veterans and their families.
His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VIII, led the ceremonies, unveiling the Chatham Naval Memorial on 26 April 1924.
HRH Prince George, the Duke of Kent led the unveiling ceremonies at Plymouth, where the memorial was inaugurated on 29 July 1924. The prince also laid a wreath on the newly revealed memorial.
Portsmouth Naval Memorial was the final major CWGC memorial to be unveiled on 15 October 1924 in a ceremony headed by the Duke of York (the future King George VI).
Expanding the naval memorials
Image: Commander-in-Chief Portsmouth Admiral Sir John Sir John Edelsten, lays a wreath on the memorial at the inauguration of the Portsmouth Naval Memorial extension
Just fifteen scant years after the unveiling of the Portsmouth Memorial, the world was plunged into conflict once more.
The Royal Navy was called upon to fight another deadly war, one greater and bloodier than that which had come before.
Following the Second World War, a new generation of naval casualties with no known grave required commemoration.
Rather than construct new sites, the decision was made to add extensions to the existing naval memorials at Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Chatham.
Sir Edward Maufe was chosen to design the memorial extensions. Maufe, who had himself served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in the First World War, had been appointed the Commission’s Principal Architect UK in January 1944. He became Chief Architect in March 1949.
The 1939-1945 extensions were unveiled in late 1952 at Plymouth and Chatham. Portsmouth was inaugurated in April 1953.
A host of new sculptures, created by Charles Wheeler, Esmond Burton, and William McMillin, were added to the memorials.
This time, rather than drawing on mythology, the sculptors used the sailors themselves as inspiration, creating stern, lifelike renderings of the men who served and fell in the Navy in wartime.
Who Does the CWGC Royal Navy memorials Commemorate?
Commonwealth War Graves Commission naval memorials commemorate by name those Royal Navy personnel lost during the World Wars with no known grave but the sea.
The Naval Memorials do not commemorate just British casualties. While other Commonwealth members commemorate their naval losses on memorials at home or abroad, a wide range of nationalities is represented on each naval memorial.
Plymouth Naval Memorial
Image: The Plymouth Naval Memorial
Plymouth Naval Memorial commemorates around 7,250 sailors of the First World War.
Over one-quarter of the Great War casualties commemorated at Plymouth were lost at the Battle of Jutland.
Fought over a furious 72 hours in late May/Early June 1916, The Battle of Jutland was the largest naval engagement of the First World War. 250 British and German ships clashed in the North Sea off Denmark, drawing in 100,000 personnel, and resulting in the death of thousands of sailors on both sides.
Most of the crews of the battleships HMS Indefatigable and HMS Defence are commemorated at Plymouth following their deaths at Jutland, representing some 2,000 or so men killed in action.
400 men of HMS Goliath, lost in the Dardanelles during the ill-fated Gallipoli Campaign, are also commemorated here.
Nearly 16,000 Second World War sailors are commemorated by name at Plymouth.
While no major fleet actions the size of Jutland took place between the Royal Navy and Germany’s Kriegsmarine in World War Two, other clashes took place, such as the skinning of HMS Glorious off Norway by two German battlecruisers. 1,220 men of Glorious were lost and commemorated at Plymouth.
Admiral Sir Tom Phillips is one of the highest-ranking officers commemorated by Plymouth Naval Memorial. He was lost alongside more than 700 souls in the sinking of the HMS Prince of Wales in the South China Sea in December 1941.
Chatham Naval Memorial
Image: Chatham Naval Memorial
Over 8,500 First World War Royal Navy sailors are commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial.
The sailors of the Great War were some of the first to experience the deadliness of submarine warfare. The German U-boat campaign kicked off almost immediately after hostilities were declared in August 1914, hunting for cargo ships and Royal Navy ships the world over.
German submariners claimed their first prize on 5 September 1914, slamming torpedoes into the hull of light cruiser HMS Pathfinder, sinking her.
Pathfinder holds the dubious distinction as the first ship to be sunk by torpedoes fired from a submarine in history. Most of her crew is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial.
U-boats and enemy subs stalked the seas in both World Wars, making sailing an incredibly risky proposition. In fact, over one-quarter of the 10,000 or so Second World War casualties commemorated at Chatham were killed in U-boat attacks.
These include eight Wrens of the Women's Royal Navy Service who were killed when their transport ship, the Khedive Ismail was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of the Maldives in February 1944.
The sinking of the Khedive Ismail resulted in the single largest loss of female life in a single day for Commonwealth forces in the Second World War.
Over 77 female personnel, mainly nurses, were killed.
1,000 East African soldiers were also lost aboard the Khedive Ismail.
Portsmouth Naval Memorial
Image: Portsmouth Naval Memorial
Some 10,000 First World War sailors are commemorated by the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.
Once more, casualties of Jutland appear prominently among the Portsmouth war dead. In total, some 3,400 men, roughly half the personnel lost at Jutland, are commemorated here.
Among their number are the crews of HMS Queen Mary and Invincible: two vessels lost at Jutland.
Queen Mary was exchanging fire with the German battlecruisers Seydlitz and Derfflinger when her magazine exploded. Of the 1,268 crewmen killed in Queen Mary’s sinking, just shy of 1,100 are commemorated at Portsmouth.
Likewise, Invincible, the world’s first battlecruiser, was dealt a similarly fatal blow at Jutland. A shell struck between one of her turrets and magazine, ripping the ship apart. Just under 870 of Invincible’s 1,021 crew lost at the Battle of Jutland are commemorated on the Portsmouth memorial, including her commander Admiral Horace Hood.
In 1918, Hood’s widow launched the HMS Hood, a new battlecruiser named after her departed husband’s illustrious ancestor Admiral Samuel Hood.
The pride of the British fleet, HMS Hood was sunk by the German battleship Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen at the Battle of the Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941.
1,415 men were lost. Hood’s sinking remains the largest loss ever on a Royal Navy ship. 1,384 of her crew are commemorated at Portsmouth Naval Memorial.
Caring for our naval memorials today
Image: A CWGC Craftsman making some important repairs to one of the sculptures at Chatham Naval Memorial
Our naval memorials have stood as iconic landmarks for a century.
While each has been carefully maintained across the decades, exposure to the elements, not least bracing sea breezes, means each memorial has been cleaned and restored over the years.
Most recently, in August 2021, Plymouth Naval Memorial was given a thorough restoration. Large sections of stonework were sustainably cleaned, while name panels were re-bronzed as necessary. Further work was done to clean and repoint the memorial’s paving.
Restoration works were undertaken at Chatham Naval Memorial in September 2020, including the cleaning, repointing and realigning of nearly three kilometres of paving.
The bronze panels were cleaned with new amendments and additions made too, reflecting our ongoing work to commemorate by name all Commonwealth casualties of the World Wars.
Portsmouth Naval Memorial was given a similar restoration in the run-up to D-Day’s 75th anniversary in April 2019.
Our maintenance teams will continue to care for our naval memorials so that they may still be standing here in another hundred years and beyond.
Discover more about how we care for our sites here.