The British Sailor of the First World War

How the Royal Navy saw off the U-boat challenge in the Great War, and the daily lives of its sailors.

In 1914 Great Britain’s navy was the largest and most powerful the world had ever seen – but what was the everyday experience of those who served in it? This fully illustrated book looks at the British sailor’s life during the First World War, from the Falkland Islands to the East African coast and the North Sea. Meals in the stokers’ mess and the admiral’s cabin; the claustrophobic terrors of the engine room or submarine; the long separations from loved ones that were the shared experience of all ranks; the perils faced by Royal Naval Air Service pilots – drawing on previously unpublished materials from the National Maritime Museum collections, this is an authoritative and vivid account of lives lived in quite extraordinary circumstances.