Great War at Sea Poetry

[MichaelBully]

Looking for poetry/poets associated with Royal Navy in Great War . Any suggestions? Many thanks, Michael Bully

[salesie]

Looking for poetry/poets associated with Royal Navy in Great War . Any suggestions? Many thanks, Michael Bully

Great War poetry associated with the war at sea is not so easy to find, Michael. There are various reasons for this, as summed-up by Martin Stephen in his Poems Of The First World War - Never Such Innocence:

"Perhaps the prevailing impression left after twelve years of reading dusty volumes of First World War poetry in university libraries is that the voice we most commonly hear, and the one with which we are most familiar, is actually the voice of outraged middle-class protest. The poets of the First World War who have achieved lasting fame were poets first, and soldiers a long way second. The recruiting, and, later, conscription, nets drew in men who in any previous ages, given their education and backgrounds, would never have thought of enlisting, and as a result many more of these, even allowing for the vast scale, were poets than had been the case in previous wars. In addition, the war itself caused the writing of poetry by men who would almost certainly not have done so otherwise. The absence of an equal body of poetry about the war at sea, as compared with the war on land and especially on the Western Front, is not because conditions for a stoker at Jutland or Scapa Flow were any less horrific than for a soldier in the trenches, but rather because the Royal Navy retained much more of a traditional intake during the war, and to have written poetry at Dartmouth then would be analogous to playing Jerry Lee Lewis at a harpsichord recital now. Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edward Thomas, Robert Graves, and Edmund Blunden, like so many other poets of the war, came from an educated class with an awareness of literature. Their view of the war is admirable in both poetic and moral terms; it would, however, be wrong to assume that it is therefore typical or representative...

...There is much less poetry about the air and sea wars than there is about the corresponding war on land. There is a variety of reasons for this. The numbers of men involved in both the war at sea and the war in the air were minuscule compared with those involved in the land campaigns. Unlikely soldiers such as Wilfred Owen and Isaac Rosenberg might well join the Army, but pre-war poets were much less likely to find themselves in the Royal Flying Corps, the Royal Naval Air Service, or the Royal Navy, with the Navy, in particular, tending to retain its traditional intake; there was no 'New Navy' to go with Kitchener's 'New Army', nor a need for one. Since 1906 the Royal Navy had been involved in a massive race to give itself enough ships and men to fight a major war, and of all the armed services it was the one best prepared for it, and best able to cope when war came ...

...One literary result of Jutland was a sharp decline in the Rule Britannia style of poetry, but the disappointment was not sufficient of a push to produce its opposite, gritty verse about the real war. Poetry about the war at sea therefore tends either to be heroic and romantic, or rather low-key although this did not stop some fine pieces being written. The fact that this poetry was included as a matter of course in anthologies published up to 1935, and then increasingly dropped in favour of the land campaign, is partly a reflection of its relative quality. But it is also reflection of the fact that, increasingly since the mid-1930s, we have tended to have a specific and immutable image of the First World War, and have then sought to confirm that image by being selective about what is printed. Poetry about the war at sea lacked the war-revulsion that we have seen as typifying trench poetry, and so has often been ignored. Notwithstanding its difference from trench poetry, the feelings of poetry from the sea war are an accurate guide to what was being felt and written at the time, and an accurate view of Great War verse demands that it be included."

Stephen does indeed include some naval poems in the anthology the foregoing extracts were taken from; they are in a chapter entitled War At Sea And War In The Air (page 211). But it is significant that the naval and air-war poetry are combined in just one chapter of eight - reflecting its relative scarcity when compared to that written by soldiers, its almost total exclusion in anthologies since the mid 1930s, and its relative lack of literary merit that Stephen mentions in his summary.

It seems that naval Great War poetry is not easy to source, not least because the "ee-aw Brigade" deemed it not "on message". I've given you one source, Stephen's anthology, where a small amount can be found, and over the next couple of days I'll try to find other sources for you, but non-obscure ones may be impossible to find.

Cheers-salesie.

[seaJane]

Scottish poet William Soutar served in the Royal Navy for a few years but I doubt any of his surviving poetry stems from that (his first book was not published till 1923: I don't have it to hand, or I'd check for any GW references).

This is a snip from the Oxford DNB:

"Soutar joined the Royal Navy in 1916, and spent the next two years with the North Atlantic Fleet. The life was taxing, but it was a stimulating challenge. He enjoyed the rough comradeship of fellow sailors but became increasingly aware of the politics of war and the human suffering that it caused. The experience developed his democratic instincts and his doubts about the values of empire, conquest, and class-ridden society. He was demobilized in November 1918, but at that time of rejoicing was ill and unable to walk, due to an unidentifiable ailment." The illness was ankylosing spondylosis, which eventually (1930) left him bedridden: he died in 1943.

A.P. (Alan Patrick) Herbert was in the RNVR but is better known as a novelist than a poet; though I'm sure I've seen a poem somewhere.

You probably don't need reminding that several of Kipling's Epitaphs of the Great War have a naval theme, plus his Mine-Sweepers, etc.

Watch this space and I may be able to find more.

sJ.

[hazelclark]

While people like Seigfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke and other well known poets may have come from educated middle class back grounds, I for one am glad that they did because otherwise we would likely be without the wealth of evocative poetry which I still enjoy. Although they may not be entirely representative, I do think that the thoughts and feeling they expressed were felt by the majority of men who signed up - they were just better at expressing it.

Great War poetry associated with the war at sea is not so easy to find, Michael. There are various reasons for this, as summed-up by Martin Stephen in his Poems Of The First World War - Never Such Innocence:

"Perhaps the prevailing impression left after twelve years of reading dusty volumes of First World War poetry in university libraries is that the voice we most commonly hear, and the one with which we are most familiar, is actually the voice of outraged middle-class protest. The poets of the First World War who have achieved lasting fame were poets first, and soldiers a long way second. The recruiting, and, later, conscription, nets drew in men who in any previous ages, given their education and backgrounds, would never have thought of enlisting, and as a result many more of these, even allowing for the vast scale, were poets than had been the case in previous wars. In addition, the war itself caused the writing of poetry by men who would almost certainly not have done so otherwise. The absence of an equal body of poetry about the war at sea, as compared with the war on land and especially on the Western Front, is not because conditions for a stoker at Jutland or Scapa Flow were any less horrific than for a soldier in the trenches, but rather because the Royal Navy retained much more of a traditional intake during the war, and to have written poetry at Dartmouth then would be analogous to playing Jerry Lee Lewis at a harpsichord recital now. Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edward Thomas, Robert Graves, and Edmund Blunden, like so many other poets of the war, came from an educated class with an awareness of literature. Their view of the war is admirable in both poetic and moral terms; it would, however, be wrong to assume that it is therefore typical or representative...

...There is much less poetry about the air and sea wars than there is about the corresponding war on land. There is a variety of reasons for this. The numbers of men involved in both the war at sea and the war in the air were minuscule compared with those involved in the land campaigns. Unlikely soldiers such as Wilfred Owen and Isaac Rosenberg might well join the Army, but pre-war poets were much less likely to find themselves in the Royal Flying Corps, the Royal Naval Air Service, or the Royal Navy, with the Navy, in particular, tending to retain its traditional intake; there was no 'New Navy' to go with Kitchener's 'New Army', nor a need for one. Since 1906 the Royal Navy had been involved in a massive race to give itself enough ships and men to fight a major war, and of all the armed services it was the one best prepared for it, and best able to cope when war came ...

...One literary result of Jutland was a sharp decline in the Rule Britannia style of poetry, but the disappointment was not sufficient of a push to produce its opposite, gritty verse about the real war. Poetry about the war at sea therefore tends either to be heroic and romantic, or rather low-key although this did not stop some fine pieces being written. The fact that this poetry was included as a matter of course in anthologies published up to 1935, and then increasingly dropped in favour of the land campaign, is partly a reflection of its relative quality. But it is also reflection of the fact that, increasingly since the mid-1930s, we have tended to have a specific and immutable image of the First World War, and have then sought to confirm that image by being selective about what is printed. Poetry about the war at sea lacked the war-revulsion that we have seen as typifying trench poetry, and so has often been ignored. Notwithstanding its difference from trench poetry, the feelings of poetry from the sea war are an accurate guide to what was being felt and written at the time, and an accurate view of Great War verse demands that it be included."

Stephen does indeed include some naval poems in the anthology the foregoing extracts were taken from; they are in a chapter entitled War At Sea And War In The Air (page 211). But it is significant that the naval and air-war poetry are combined in just one chapter of eight - reflecting its relative scarcity when compared to that written by soldiers, its almost total exclusion in anthologies since the mid 1930s, and its relative lack of literary merit that Stephen mentions in his summary.

It seems that naval Great War poetry is not easy to source, not least because the "ee-aw Brigade" deemed it not "on message". I've given you one source, Stephen's anthology, where a small amount can be found, and over the next couple of days I'll try to find other sources for you, but non-obscure ones may be impossible to find.

Cheers-salesie.

[seaJane]

Michael,

Cicely Fox Smith (1882-1954) wrote nautical-themed poems some of which have GW references but I couldn't say for certain whether they refer to the Royal Navy, with the exception of "The Naval Crown: Ballads and Songs of the War" (1915).

sJ

[salesie]

While people like Seigfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke and other well known poets may have come from educated middle class back grounds, I for one am glad that they did because otherwise we would likely be without the wealth of evocative poetry which I still enjoy. Although they may not be entirely representative, I do think that the thoughts and feeling they expressed were felt by the majority of men who signed up - they were just better at expressing it.

The work of Sassoon, Owen et al (the commonly perceived major War Poets) was the voice of middle-class outrage, and not representative of the thoughts of the majority who fought - to see this clearly, you need to move away from popular anthologies and read a wider spectrum of poetry from the so-called lesser War Poets. The more representative work of "lesser" poets is there to be read but is just not as easy to find as the work of the "on-message" poets (a result of the populist, politicised, view of WW1 stemming from the mid 1930s onwards).

That said, this is a thread about Great War naval poetry, and if you wish debate just how representative the work of Sassoon, Owen et al is, I would respectfully suggest starting a new thread on that particular subject.

Cheers-salesie.

[MichaelBully]

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated. I am giving a talk in April 2012 about Royal Navy Great War dead associated with Hove, and thought that it would be great to have some poetry associated with the war at Sea. I then realised that I couldn't think of any , hence the post.

Salesie -the question of how representative Sassoon and Owen and the currently more well known poets are is important, but I also prefer not to have the debate on this particular thread. To my knowledge , this discussion last appeared on GWF about three weeks ago. Will try to find the thread.

Edit http://1914-1918.inv...1

Further Edit...

Latest Sassoon thread ( I think) http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=171983&st=0&p=1670315&fromsearch=1entry1670315

[SiegeGunner]

Lt Cmdr Edward Hilton Young RNVR (later Lord Kennet) served at sea and later on land with the Royal Naval Siege Guns on the Belgian coast. He lost his right arm while commanding the 6" guns aboard HMS Vindictive during the Zeebrugge raid and later took part in the North Russia expedition, commanding an armoured train. He was a peripheral member of the Bloomsbury Group and wrote a number of 'war poems', including 'Mine-sweeping trawlers' .... http://allpoetry.com/poem/8586053-Mine-Sweeping_Trawlers-by-Edward_Hilton_Young, which were published in 1919 under the title 'A Muse at Sea' .... http://www.archive.org/details/museatseaverses00kennuoft

[MichaelBully]

That's excellent Siege Gunner. Many thanks indeed. Have never heard of this chap before. Regards, Michael Bully

Lt Cmdr Edward Hilton Young RNVR (later Lord Kennet) served at sea and later on land with the Royal Naval Siege Guns on the Belgian coast. He lost his right arm while commanding the 6" guns aboard HMS Vindictive during the Zeebrugge raid and later took part in the North Russia expedition, commanding an armoured train. He was a peripheral member of the Bloomsbury Group and wrote a number of 'war poems', including 'Mine-sweeping trawlers' .... http://allpoetry.com...rd_Hilton_Young, which were published in 1919 under the title 'A Muse at Sea' .... http://www.archive.o...erses00kennuoft

[SiegeGunner]

That's excellent Siege Gunner. Many thanks indeed. Have never heard of this chap before. Regards, Michael Bully

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilton_Young,_1st_Baron_Kennet

The MJGD to whom the poem 'Air Service' is dedicated was Flight-Commander Miles Jeffery Game Day DSC RNAS, who was himself something of a rara avis, being an aviator/poet — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffery_Day

After Jeff Day was lost in action off the Belgian coast in February 1918, Hilton Young arranged for a collection of his poems to be published (1919) under the title 'Poems & Rhymes', prefaced by a remarkable memoir of his 21yr old friend by the 38yr old EHY — http://www.archive.org/stream/poemsrhymes00dayj/poemsrhymes00dayj_djvu.txt

The E.C. referred to early in Hilton Young's memoir of Jeff Day was Erskine Childers (also RNAS), who described Day's work as 'pure gold'.

Mick

[hazelclark]

"'Twere ever thus! But i stand chastised! For the record though, I have read widely amongst the so called "lesser poets".

Hazel C.

The work of Sassoon, Owen et al (the commonly perceived major War Poets) was the voice of middle-class outrage, and not representative of the thoughts of the majority who fought - to see this clearly, you need to move away from popular anthologies and read a wider spectrum of poetry from the so-called lesser War Poets. The more representative work of "lesser" poets is there to be read but is just not as easy to find as the work of the "on-message" poets (a result of the populist, politicised, view of WW1 stemming from the mid 1930s onwards).

That said, this is a thread about Great War naval poetry, and if you wish debate just how representative the work of Sassoon, Owen et al is, I would respectfully suggest starting a new thread on that particular subject.

Cheers-salesie.

[bobpike]

A few Great War sea poems –

The Old Way Ronald Hopwood

Song of the White Ensign . William M. James

Undying Days William M. James

To a Naval Cadet .... Noel F. M. Corbett

Lines written somewhere in the North Sea Noel F. M. Corbett

Battle of the Falkland Isles . . . .

Guns at Sea Imtarfa

News of Jutland Roma White

ALFRED NOYES: Kilmeny

RUDYARD KIPLING: The Mine-Sweepers ....

HENRY VAN DYKE: Mare Liberum

LIEUTENANT PAUL BEWSHER: The Dawn Patrol . .

REGINALD MC!NTOSH CLEVELAND: Destroyers off

Jutland

C. Fox SMITH: British Merchant Service ....

[David_Underdown]

Rupert Brooke had an RNVR commission and served with the RND - although of course this means that he was actually land based

[seaJane]

Rupert Brooke - Hood RN Brigade

Paul Bewsher (1894-1966). Royal Naval Air Service, 1915-18

Commander John Graham Bower, (pseu. "Klaxon") (1886-1940)

Lieutenant-Commander Noel Marcus Francis Corbett.

Patrick Shaw-Stewart (1888-1917 (Dec. 30)). Lieutenant-Commander Royal Naval Division, Hood Battalion, friend of Rupert Brooke & Julian Grenfell. Cf. biography by Ronald Knox (1920). http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/listbri4.html

Edward Hilton Young (1879-1960), DSC. Lieutenant RNVR, mostly on ships (wounded at Zeebrugge), but also with the Naval guns in Flanders and on the Archangel front.

It's probably a case of slogging through Google books (for old editions of Punch), and the Times Digital Archives, to trace the poems.

Possible other sources:

First World War Poetry Digital Archive http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit

Poetry Library, South Bank http://www.poetrylibrary.org.uk/

sJ

sorry David, crossed posts, I was looking something up while you mentioned Brooke.

[SiegeGunner]

sorry David, crossed posts, I was looking something up while you mentioned Brooke.

And dozing, Jane, while I mentioned Hilton Young ...

[seaJane]

that was hours ago... my short term memory ain't what it was ...

[MichaelBully]

Gosh ! This really is GWF at its very best. Thank you all for your suggestions. Appreciated. The focus of my talk will be mainly on Jutland and Zeebrugge, so it would be great to be able to read out some poetry by men fought there.

I will go through these poems and start selecting some. It would be great if one day an anthology of Great War at Sea poetry would appear.

Regards to you all , Michael Bully

[seaJane]

Michael,

A colleague says: Do they have to be serving personnel? If not, you could count Henry Newbolt. He was a lawyer but also an eminent naval historian.

sJ

[seaJane]

PS: You might find something in the relevant section in Cyril Tawney's compilation "Grey Funnel Lines: Traditional Song and Verse of the Royal Navy, 1900-70" (Routledge, 1987).

[seaJane]

Okay, sorry to hog this thread but I have a copy of Grey Funnel Lines in front of me, and yes, there are a few with GW references.

And today I am working in a library which contains these publications:

Capt. Ronald A. Hopwood:

The Old Way and other poems. London: John Murray, 1918

Secret of the Ships, London: John Murray, 1918.

Edward Hilton Young:

By sea and land: some naval doings. T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1920.

A muse at sea. London: Sidgwick, 1919.

'In the Vindictive'. Cornhill Magazine, December 1918, p.597

'On a battleship: a volunteer's reflections'. Churchill Magazine, April 1915, p.576.

Klaxon (J.G. Bower)

H.M.S. ------- . London: William Blackwood, 1918, reprinted 1933 (this may not be poetry, can't tell)

Songs of the Submarine. London: McBride, 1917.

N.M.F. Corbett

A naval motley: verses written at sea during the war and before it. 2nd ed. London, 1916.

[MichaelBully]

Once again all this extra information is much appreciated. Many thanks to all who have posted. Michael Bully

[seaJane]

Once again all this extra information is much appreciated. Many thanks to all who have posted. Michael Bully

No trouble. Thanks to the colleagues who have been fossicking through their catalogues for me!

I am told that the following are in the library of the National Museum of the Royal Navy Portsmouth (the establishment formerly known as RNM) -

A naval motley: verses written at sea during the war and before it / CORBETT, N. M. F.

London: Methuen, 1916

The new navy and other poems / HOPWOOD, Ronald A.

London: John Murray, 1919

Poems by an Able Seaman

London: Westminster Press, 1918

Salute from the fleet and other poems / NOYES, Alfred

London: Methuen, 1915

sorry about the spacing - this machine goes doolally with java.

[MichaelBully]

Thanks again for the extra information. Yes, this really re-iterates the case for an anthology of Great War at Sea poetry. Sea Jane, yes would prefer to focus on poetry written by men who were serving at sea in the Great War either in the Royal Navy or who saw hostilities at sea in another capacity, such as serving in the merchant navy. Regards.

[domwalsh]

A few years ago I bought a package of documents relating to Lord Keyes of Zeebrugge fame. It included literally dozens of poems about the raid penned by admiring members of the public and sent to him! I'm not sure many would pass muster in quality terms, but they're quite interesting...

[CBooth]

Kipling's Sea Warfare contains some poems. I am not sure his poem 'The Trade' is in there (about the submarine service) but whether it is or not, both the book and the poem are definitely worth a look.

Best wishes

Charles

PS SW available free on www.archive.org