Hi, we recently retrieved our grandfathers RNR service record and although the information was hard to read - we interpreted that he served on the following vessels during the Great War.

Vessels served in, Attentive, Excellent, Dreel Castle, Tartai, Resident III, Tug Blackcock, Glory, Victory, S.S, Kingfisher and Dido ?

With limited success, I've surfed around looking for information on these vessels but don't think i'm doing it justice. Could anyone help by suggesting where we can obtain more information on these vessels.

Any help will be much appreciated

Thanks
Haggis

Hi again,
On a further note, my grandfather was a survivor on the Tug Blackcock, which, in November 1918 on a trail to Archangel, was stranded near Vardoe in the White Sea. The onset of the winter made salvage impossible and the vessel was lost in the Ice.

Source: http://members.lycos.nl/towing/album10/page3.html

On his service record it mentions he was a survivor from this and he returned to service soon after.

I would love to find out what happened after this, how did they survive and get back home - were they rescued by another vessel ? My Dad thinks they may have been rescued by Laplanders but we would be keen to find out.

Again, and information will be much appreciated.

Haggis

Haggis

Are you aware that most of the above are shore bases or depot ships rather than seagoing vessels?

Attentive, Excellent, Dreel Castle, Tartlair(?), Glory, Victory, Kingfisher and Dido were all such locations.

If you can give some dates when he was stationed at each, we can tell you where these were located. The names were used for different places at different times.

Without the dates, the most likely locations were...

Attentive - Dover
Excellent - Whale Island, Portsmouth
Dreel Castle - Falmouth
Tartlair(?) - Hawkscraig, Fife
Glory - Depot ship at Murmansk and Rosyth
Victory - Portsmouth & other locations
Kingfisher - Yarmouth
Dido - Harwich

If there is a Roman numeral after any of the names, the locations could be different.

Blackcock was a hired tug (hired 11.08.14) which was wrecked in the White Sea 18.01.18. (matches 'Glory' being at Murmansk).

I can't find a ship or base named 'Resident' though the Roman numeral 'III' makes it more likely that it is a badly written shore base name.

Any chance you could scan the relevant part of the record and post it here.

Sorry, I forgot to say - 'Welcome to the Forum'.

Thanks very much for the reply - No, I wasn't aware that most of these were shore bases, I had checked through some of the older postings here and noticed that there were a few reply's to vessels requests like this.

Have just looked over the service record again and have the following info, writting and layout isn't great to read from the record but here goes.

Tartai from Excellent 14/10/14 - 14/12/14
Attentive 15/12/14 - 18/5/16
Excellent from Attentive ("Tartai") 18/5/16 - 18/7/16
Dreel Castle 19/7/16 - 7/4/18
Tug Blacknock - survivor from this tug 21-1-1918

Then it get's confusing - so I'll aim to suss out this bit first.

Service Record is attached

Cheers again for the help
Haggis

Of course - 'Resident' is 'President III'

The bases are as follows...

Attentive - Base Ship at Dover 1904-14 and land base 1914-19.
Excellent - Whale Island, Portsmouth - Training Establishment 1866-1985 & 1994-
Dreel Castle - Falmouth - Auxiliary Patrol Base 1915-19
Glory - Depot ship at Murmansk 1916-19
Victory - Portsmouth
Kingfisher - Auxiliary patrol Base Yarmouth
Dido - Depot ship Harwich 1914-19
President III - Accounting Base at Bristol for RFR, RNVR, RNR 1916-19

'Tartai' could be 'Tartar' - a destroyer. 'Attentive' was the base for the Dover Patrol.

A comment and a correction: I think it's likely that the "Tartai" is actually HMS Tartar, a destroyer assigned to Dover Command during the war. The light cruiser HMS Attentive also served in Dover Command, though on active duty, not as a depot ship. I fact, Attentive served as leader of 6th DF, to which Tartar was assigned. I would suspect then that the Attentive (Tartar) reference would mean that your grandfather served on Tartar though pay and other administrative matters were handled on/through Attentive.

Best wishes,
Michael

'Attentive II' was the name of the shore base at Dover from 12.1914 to 31.10.19 named after the cruiser 'HMS Attentive' which was Flag of the Admiral of the Dover Patrol.

HMS Excellent still exists in its own right as an RN training unit on Whale Island, Portsmouth.
It also hosts a number of 'lodger units' plus the HQ of CinC FLEET.

Dave

Thanks for the correction, Dave. I forgot to add that 'Excellent' was recommissioned in 1994!

Thanks again for all the input. I think you are right in that it is HMS Tartar. Does anyone have any information on this ship, did it survive the war. For interest, does anyone know where I could get a picture ?

Thanks Haggis.

HMS Tartar was sold for scrap 09.05.21.

The name was used again later.

Hi,
I'm interested to find out any more information on the destroyer HMS Tartar, HMS Attentive (light cruiser) and the Tug BlackCock.

Can anyone advise me where I could get a picture of Tartar and Attentive and where I could get any general information on these ships activities during the war ?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers
Haggis