Reservists on Good Hope and Monmouth at Coronel

[Bart150]

The Good Hope and Monmouth were lost with all hands at Coronel. It is a pretty much established fact that the majority of the 1600 who died were reservists who were called up in mid-July 1914, assigned to a ship and sent to sea within a few days. But, I wondered, roughly what proportion of these ships’companies were reservists?

Bennett’s book on Coronel has Good Hope ‘with a crew including more than 90% per cent reservists’; no source is given; there is no equivalent figure for Monmouth. Hough’s book says only that each of the ships had a ‘raw crew which included a number of reservists’. Pitt says nothing specific about the reservists in the crews. I found nothing on the internet that added any insight.

So I had these questions: Was it really true that 90% or more of the men who died on Good Hope were reservists? and Was the proportion of reservists on Monmouth much the same as on Good Hope?

Using Geoff’s Search Engine - http://www.hut-six.co.uk/cgi-bin/search1421.php - I could analyse the data held by the CWGC about the dead of Coronel. The surprising results were:

Good Hope

: 918 men, of which only 4 RNR (Royal Naval Reserve); the rest Royal Navy or Royal Marine.

Monmouth

: 735 men, of which 8 RNR; the rest Royal Navy or Royal Marine.

Fortunately there is another source: the casualty lists compiled by Don Kindell:

http://www.naval-history.net/xDKCas1914-11Nov2.htm. The comparable figures from these lists are:

Good Hope

: 925 men, of which 4 RNR.

Monmouth

: 738 men, of which 8 RNR.

But in Kindell’s lists many men whom the CWGC records as Royal Navy are given as RFR (Royal Fleet Reserve) or Coastguard (which is a kind of reservist). The lists give:

Good Hope

: 925 men, of which 4 RNR; 400 RFR; 40 Coastguard.

Monmouth

: 738 men, of which 8 RNR; 0 RFR; 40 Coastguard.

On that basis about 50% of Good Hope’s men were reservists and less than 10% of Monmouth’s.

But this is difficult to believe. In June 1914 these obsolete ships were still moored in some quiet creek without any crew at all. It was always the intention that in an emergency such as a major war the ships would be recommissioned and manned largely by reservists. Meanwhile most of the career Royal Navy men would be serving with the Grand Fleet. So the following is my conjectured explanation of the above figures:

Starting with the simplification that everybody except the Royal Marines can be assumed to be RN (Royal Navy), it is (I suppose) fairly easy to pick out RNR cases and label them as RNR; after that it is (I suppose) not too too difficult to pick out the coastguard cases and label them; but it is (I suppose) hard work after that to identify all the assumed-RN cases that should be labelled RFR.

Probably somebody has been through the Good Hope list identifying all the RNR and Coastguard cases. They have also done a substantial but incomplete job of identifying those cases that should be labelled RFR. But probably many such cases still remain unrecognised; if those were all accounted for then the proportion of reservists would probably rise much higher than 50%. But whether the figure would go as high as 90% I rather doubt.

Probably somebody also went through the Monmouth list to identify the RNR and Coastguard cases, but they never got round to starting on RFR cases. The true percentage for RFR cases is probably not 0%, but a similar figure to whatever the true Good Hope proportion is.

I hope it is clear that the above are just my current guesses based on little more than intuition. Comments welcome!

Bart

x

[westkent78]

Bart,

Have you tried generating it on the new CWGC site.

They have about 400 RFR men designated on Good Hope too, but none on Monmouth. Looks like CWGC may be the source and someone originally didn't bother to fill out all the details for Monmouth. They even added in the RM Reservists too.

Looks like you may be able to do some estimating from service number though, taking into account prefixes, or rather the lack of them for the reservists and the "SS" prefix With a rough look it does appear that Monmouth may have had significantly less RFR men onboard.

Best regards,

Matthew

[Bart150]

Thanks Matthew, I'd be grateful if you or anyone can tell me how to use the structure of the service number to identify reservists.

Best regards, Bart

[westkent78]

Bart,

Not an expert by any means, but just looking at the data and what we have for Good Hope, almost all the SS (Short Service) men appear to be from the RFR. Anybody with any other prefix wouldn't have joined until post 1907 so unlikely to be a reservist. Anybody with a six digit number would have joined pre-1908, so there's a good possibility he's RFR. Also in many cases you have age which may help and if you take samples from the National Archives you could probably come up with a schedule for issuance of service numbers. Actually I'm surprised no one has done it yet, or perhaps they have and I'm ignorant.

It's far from exact, but given time and the index to the Marines and Seaman's files I reckon you could get a lot closer than the numbers you've already quoted.

Best regards,

Matthew

[horatio2]

It is not surprising that SS seamen and stokers (Special Service, incidentally, not "Short Service") were mobilised from the RFR since a Special Service engagement was five years RN plus seven years RFR.

A man with a six figure number (after 178,000) could have enlisted no earlier than 1894 and even the earliest would still not have reached pension until 1915. Many, however, would have completed a 12-year engagement and may have joined the RFR. The only certain way to check (if an RFR number had not been recorded elsewhere - e.g. CWGC or Medal Roll) is to look at their ADM 188 and ADM 159 records of service.

[David_Underdown]

I'd have to check the exact details again, but this man http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2870601/BASHFORD,%20ALFRED originally joined as a boy, bought himself out before his term expired, and was recalled from RFR for service

I think there's a website dedicated to Coronel?

[clive_hughes]

Of the four Anglesey men killed at Coronel, all were RN (not RFR or RNR despite plenty of other locals in those branches), and all aboard the Monmouth.

However, one 1891 enlistment was called back from HM Coast Guard service: one 1899 enlistment was already serving in Monmouth from at least April 1914 (1912 in fact, with gaps); one Boy 1st Class enlistment 1913 who was switched into her from Vivid base on mobilisation; and one 1902 enlistment Stoker with just a few months still to go was likewise switched into her from Vivid.

Clive

[Bart150]

Very interesting little sample that from Anglesey.

It's certainly looking as though the profile of the Monmouth crew was very different from that of the Good Hope's.

I wonder if anyone can help me with the following.

I have the impression that it is never possible to look at the service number of any one of these men and deduce from that data alone that he must have been a reservist called back for the emergency.

I also have the impression that it is never possible to look at the service number of any one of these men and deduce from that data alone that he must have been a regular and not a reservist called back for the emergency.

Are both these two impressions of mine definitely correct?

Bart

[westkent78]

Bart,

I'm away from the file I downloaded and started manipulating, but I'd disagree with both of your impressions.

I think that in some of the men you can determine that he'd be RFR just by looking at his number. You just have to come up with a schedule for the numbering and logically work from that.

If SS men only served 5 years and then 7 years, and you can work out when a particular number was issued, you coud see if he was still in his 5 year segment or his 7 year RFR segment.

As to 6 digits, work out the enlistment schedule of the numbers, and then see who hasn't even made it to 12 years- they should be regulars no question.

And the various trade prefixes should indicate who wasn't a reservist.

Hopefully I'll get some spare time tomorrow to work it out more clearly.

Matthew

[David_Underdown]

Don't forget that the 12 years didn't include boy service, so you could have 3 or 4 years on top. Started from 18th birthday I think. And there might be men other than Bashford who bought themselves out early

[Bart150]

Thanks, Matthew and David.

I worded my ‘impressions’ carefully to speak of knowing a man’s status from his service number ONLY (ie not using additional information such as dates of service).

In other words, I am saying that, given a set of numbers – eg (at random) 206926, B 2978, K 22243, K 3016, J 23322, SS 110698, M 7537, L 645, 14961 etc – I would very much like to be able to apply a piece of logic of the following form:

If the number has the following format and content .....

Then the man must be serving as a regular

Else If the number has the following format and content .....

Then the man must be serving as a recalled reservist

Else (ie if none of the above conditions hold)

Then the man may be serving as a regular or serving as a recalled reservist (we can’t tell from the number)

However, my impression was that no such logic was possible. In saying that I was of course hoping to provoke people to respond that such logic was indeed possible and then to tell me exactly what the appropriate logic was.

As it happens, I’ve just discovered one piece of logic that does seem to work perfectly:

If the number has the following format and content: starts with A or B

Then the man must be serving as a recalled reservist

This accounts for about 360 of the 1600+ men.

By the way, I’ve copied down Kindell’s lists and organised the material into a Word table, thus making it easy to sort and count on distinct data fields. Anyone who wants it, send me a pm.

Bart

[Bart150]

In Bennett’s book on Jutland (p22) I found the following information about the situation just before the War (in my summary):

In peace every warship belonged to the First, the Second or the Third Fleet. The term ‘fleet’ is potentially confusing: these were really three categories of ship.

A ship in the First Fleet category was fully operational and so had a full crew.

A ship in the Second Fleet category was not operational but had a nucleus crew.

A ship in the Third Fleet category was not operational and had a tiny crew.

Note 1. I don’t really know what ‘nucleus’ means for a Second Fleet ship: Is it 10%, 30%, 50%, 70%? I think I have read somewhere else that it meant 50%, and I rather wonder what they all did every day.

Note 2. A Third-Fleet ship was not just left to decay until she was sold or scrapped (like the ships that are left nowadays in Fareham Creek.). She was maintained so that in the event of war she could become operational within a couple of weeks or less.

In the event of war ships of the Second and Third Fleets would of course need full crews. Bennett says that Second-Fleet ships would be ‘quickly manned by officers and men under training’, while Third-Fleet ships ‘depended on mobilization for their crews’.

Now I had always understood that at the beginning of July 1914 the Good Hope and the Monmouth were both in the Third-Fleet category and that, once war broke out, they were given crews consisting very largely (ie 90% or so) of mobilised reservists. But now that I’m looking in detail at the casualty lists from Coronel I think the truth may be different. Here are two hypotheses:

1. They weren’t both Third-Fleet ships: Good Hope was Third Fleet but Monmouth was Second Fleet. That is why the proportion of reservists on Good Hope seems to be much greater.
   
2. It wasn’t the case (as Bennett implies) that all or nearly all the empty places in the crew of Third-Fleet ships were filled by reservists. Many regulars were brought in too (and so the places they vacated on First-Fleet ships were taken by reservists.) That is why the proportion of reservists even on Good Hope seems to be much less than 90%.
   

I’m wondering how to test these hypotheses.

Bart

[horatio2]

I believe Bart's two "impressions" to be broadly correct. You cannot draw any firm conclusions about RFR service in 1914 from an RN official number, except for the following:

Nos. 1.A to 40,000.A - None enlisted after 1860. They would have gone to pension by 1888-90 and would be too old for WW1.

Nos. 1.B to 21,800.B - None enlisted after 1872. They would have gone to pension by 1893-5 and would be too old for WW1.

Nos. 40,001 to 178,000 - Enlisted 1873 to 1893. Relatively few of this cohort would still be serving in 1914 but many of them could be RFR. Only their records will reveal.

1894 onwards (offical numbers with letter prefixes). Could be RN or RN(RFR). Only his record will reveal when he was discharged (ranging from discharge by purchase after 1 year to invaliding after 15 years - and anything in between) and whether he then joined the RFR. Knowing when he enlisted (or, more helpfully, when his engagement started) tells you nothing about his RFR status.

In Post #11 Bart stated "... the number has the following format and content: starts with A or B. Then the man must be serving as a recalled reservist." This is incorrect. No RN rating has an official number prefixed by 'A' or 'B'. RNR seamen have offical numbers with a SUFFIX (although often used as a prefix) 'A' or 'B' for 1st and 2nd periods of enrolment, respectively. RFR ratings had an 'A' or 'B' suffix to their RFR number: 'A' for pensioners, 'B' for others.

In summary, you cannot make any assumptions about the (apparently low) proportion of RFR men in MONMOUTH based on their offical numbers alone.

[David_Underdown]

I think one of the points about Good Hope is that CWGC records do seem to indicate if they were RFR - Bashford's record actually prefixes the ship name with his RFR "reference" (whatever the correct term for that is) RFR/PO/B/2682, as well as having his number, 217071.

While you need more information than just the number, you can draw some inferences from freely available info in the Discovery system at The National Archives (ie you don't have to pay to download the record itself). For records in ADM 188 (for the relevant period, the data does vary a little over time), the date of birth is usually included as the first element of the description, and the record date is the year of joining.

Looking at Bashford's record in detail, he joined as Boy 2nd Class on 16 September 1901 (just short of his 16th birthday on 19 November). After a few days he was posted to Lion on 21 September. He becomes Boy 1st Class on 19 June 1902. Then postings on Minotaur, Agincourt, Camperdown and Hawker. He's still aboard Hawker when his man service begins (and with it his 12 year CS engagement, as noted at the top the form). Then a variety of sea postings (mostly) until 25 June 1908 when he's on the books of Victory I, and on 16 July 1908 "Shore by purchase" and into RFR. He's recalled on 13 July straight on to Good Hope, then 25 July to 30 July (inclusive) on Victory I's books (refresher training?) and back to Good Hope on 31 July until her end 3 months later

[David_Underdown]

It may also be instructive to look at RN casualties for 22 September 1914 when Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue were torpedoed. A lot of these men also have RFR (or RMR for marines) prefixed to the ship name. This would expand the sample a bit

[horatio2]

Without downloading a record, the only information that can be gleaned from the TNA Discovery data is date of birth and year of enlistment (NOT start of engagement necessarily).

Neither of these pieces of information give any clues whatsoever as to subsequent service/discharge and possible RFR service or mobilisation. Every man's service is unique, so "drawing inferences" is likely to be a futile exercise.

[David_Underdown]

Yes there is margin for error. However, the CWGC data allows for some validation as RFR numbers are given for Good Hope men (and a high proportion of those from Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue). If nothing else it would be possible to see if Monmouth, rather than being manned largely by reservists, was perhaps brought up to complement by men not long joined up. And it might highlight a few men with particularly unusual patterns of service for whom it might be worth purchasing the records

[westkent78]

Just looking at the number in total isolation from any other factor, as Bart was proposing, is bound to lead to no pattern being made.

While I understand every man's service is unique, and the only real way of answering this question is to look at every crewman's file, if you play with enough data you do start to see patterns, and while an individual 'inference' may not be correct in the broader picture you can get closer than we currently are now. Playing with the data does throw up more likely reservist candidates and targeted downloading or looking up at the NA would confirm the hypothesis in each individual case. It would just be a very time consuming and/or expensive proposition.

Birthdate is definitely useful to know. Just by looking at the two crews you can see that Good Hope is quite a bit older crew. I'd hazard that even the service numbers alone indicates that.

Having just looked at the 22nd Sept sample and the Coronel sample too, here's one thing I can say. Not a single man, assuming I haven't missed one in the 3,000+ sample, who has a J, K, L or M prefix is listed by CWGC as being a reservist. Good Hope has 129 of these men, Monmouth has 277, which in itself is interesting. Is CWGC somehow blind to just these 'prefix men' when they seem to have all the other RFR men for Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue listed, and possibly Good Hope, or can it be proposed that no men on these 5 ships with one of these prefixes was a reservist?

Matthew

[horatio2]

Not a single man, assuming I haven't missed one in the 3,000+ sample, who has a J, K, L or M prefix is listed by CWGC as being a reservist. Good Hope has 129 of these men, Monmouth has 277, which in itself is interesting. Is CWGC somehow blind to just these 'prefix men' when they seem to have all the other RFR men for Aboukir, Cressey and Hogue listed, and possibly Good Hope, or can it be proposed that no men on these 5 ships with one of these prefixes was a reservist?

Men with these prefixes all enlisted after 1 January 1908 and the earliest discharge, having completed a limited engagement of twelve years, would not be anticipated until 1920 and that would be the earliest date on which they could join the RFR. The only men in this cohort who could have joined the RFR before WW1 would be those who were discharged early (eg by purchase or invalided) in the years 1908-1913/4 and they would be relatively few in number. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that few (or none) who enlisted post-1907 appear as mobilised RFR in 1914.

[westkent78]

Thanks Horatio.

Well, I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier but I just checked my copy of the casualty returns, ADM 104/145, and guess what... There are all the casualties for Good Hope and Monmouth nicely laid out alphabetically, with indications if they were RFR on not. And while it was only a very cursory glance, it seems CWGC may have it about right as far as Good Hope goes. As for Monmouth, it also mirrors CWGC with very little mention of RNR or RFR. Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue all have their RFR men indicated too. So from looking at these two sources Monmouth would seem to be definitely a different kettle of fish to Good Hope.

ADM 104/145 is a free download from the National Archives, assuming you can find it with the new system.

Matthew

[Bart150]

Thanks for your expert input, Horatio2. Look, the first line on the list of casualties is this:

ABRAMS, Harold J, Able Seaman (RFR B 6813), 233190 (Po)

There are hundreds of such cases in the list. There are no cases of a ‘B’number where the man is not ‘RFR’. Therefore I strongly suspect that if I reword my logic statement in a rather legalistic fashion, then you will feel able to approve it:

If the service number (or, in a case where the list gives several numbers, if one out of the service numbers given in the list) has the following format and content: starts with A or B

Then the man must be serving as a recalled reservist

Hope that’s OK.

Now a point of clarification. I’m not concerned to get a precise figure such as (eg) 1289 out of the 1663 men were reservists, ie 77.5%. To achieve that kind of accuracy one would indeed have to examine the service record of each man. Only in that way could you take account of unusual cases such as a man who buys himself out of the service and then changes his mind and joins again etc. I only want to get a rough percentage, accurate probably to within 10%, for each of the two ships. To achieve that it isn’t necessary to take account of unusual patterns of service affecting only a small proportion of cases.

As the most recent couple of messages show (if I understand them correctly), we can now add another piece of logic

If the service number (or, in a case where the list gives several numbers, if one out of the service numbers given in the list) has the following format and content: starts with J or K or L or M

Then the man is almost certainly (unusual patterns of service excepted) a regular

This accounts for another 411 men on my list (i’m not much bothered that it’s 406 on Matthew’s list). So the statement in Bennett’s book that more than 90% of the crew of Good Hope were reservists is already well refuted.

I also have the idea that analysis of the number alone can be taken further, using logic of the form:

If the service number begins with (eg) ‘Q’ (to take a non-existent letter as an example) and the figure after the ‘Q’ is less than ‘1000’

Then the man is almost certainly (unusual patterns of service excepted) a called-up reservist

If the service number begins with (eg) ‘Q’ and the figure after the ‘Q’ is greater than ‘5000’,

Then the man is almost certainly (unusual patterns of service excepted) a regular

If the service number begins with (eg) ‘Q’ and the figure after the ‘Q’ is in the range ‘1000’to ‘5000’

Then we can’t tell from the number whether the man is a called-up reservist or a regular.

Assuming this kind of logic has some value, any help in establishing the ‘boundary’ figures would be greatly appreciated. I’d like to see how far that approach can be taken before going on after that to the possible use of birthdates.

No, Matthew, I couldn’t find ADM 104/145, regrettably; got a bit frustrated about it. But from what you say it sounds much the same as the Kindell list that I referred to in my opening post. If so, the question remains: Can the low number of reservists implied by Kindell and ADM 104/145 really be accurate?

You may wonder why I’m interested in this matter. Well, I had an uncle on Monmouth. He was a regular, port division Chatham. But fate decreed that in July 1914 he was doing a course at Indus, Devonport, and in the rush to man Monmouth at Devonport he was assigned. Meanwhile his brother was a regular, port division Devonport, and he went to Monmouth’s sister ship Lancaster. They had two uncles (my great-uncles), both RFR, port division Portsmouth; so they might well have been assigned when Good Hope was manned at Portsmouth, but were not. Thus out of the four, only one went to a ship outside his own port division, and he was the one who died (of course, if he’d avoided Monmouth and got back to Chatham he might have ended up on the Crecy, Aboukir or Hogue.). So you see, I’m interested in the whole process of the manning of these ships.

Bart

[horatio2]

If the official number states e.g. "RFR/A (or B)/1234" then by definition the man is clearly RFR because that is the RFR part of his official number: RFR/A numbers being given to men who had been discharged to pension and RFR/B numbers to men who were otherwise discharged (eg after 12 years or by purchase). An RFR man's full official number consisted of his 'active service' RN number together with his RFR number e.g. "123456 (RFR/A/987)" for a pensioner or "345678 (RFR/B/678)" for a non-pensioner.

I repeat, there should be no case of a man having just a number A (or B ) 1234 without being preceded by "RFR" and an RN number should also accompany it. Such RFR men are self-identifying.

You are left with those not marked "RFR/A or B". I can live with your J, K, L, M (Post-1907 entries) logic. Your logic for pre-1908 entries is highly suspect. The only broad statement you can make with any confidence in its accuracy would be on the lines of:-

" for pre-1908 entries, the earlier the number, the more likely it is that the man was recalled from the RFR." [Rationale - it is more likely that the earlier numbers will have reached the end of their engagement or been discharged for other reasons.]

The final spoiler to such generalisations is that there was no obligation on men to join the RFR after discharge (except for Special Service SS men)

[westkent78]

Bart,

Don't know if this will work, but here's the entry for ADM 104/145: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details?uri=C513632

If it doesn't work you need to go to the Online Collections and type in ADM 104/145. It should come up then.

ADM 104 is described as:

Admiralty and predecessors: Office of the Director General of the Medical Department of the Navy and predecessors: Service Registers and Registers of Deaths and Injuries. REGISTERS OF KILLED AND WOUNDED. ADM 104. Registers of killed and wounded.

• Collection: Records of the Admiralty, Naval Forces, Royal Marines, Coastguard, and related bodies
  
• Date range:01 August 1914 - 31 July 1915
  
• Reference:ADM 104/145.
  

Usually it includes information on all casualties, and how they died or the type of wound, but obviously with these sinkings where no-one survived they're all just listed as DD.

It seems to me that it would be odd for the relevant authorities to be capable of, and actually accomplish, the recording of the Reservist status of the relevant men on Good Hope, Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue but not do it for Monmouth. From personal research on the casualties on Majestic in 1915, I know that their Reservist status was also accurately recorded. So perhaps the question should be what was different about the manning of Monmouth compared to all the other ships?

Matthew

[simonharley]

In Bennett’s book on Jutland (p22) I found the following information about the situation just before the War (in my summary):

In peace every warship belonged to the First, the Second or the Third Fleet. The term ‘fleet’ is potentially confusing: these were really three categories of ship.

A ship in the First Fleet category was fully operational and so had a full crew.

A ship in the Second Fleet category was not operational but had a nucleus crew.

A ship in the Third Fleet category was not operational and had a tiny crew.

Note 1. I don’t really know what ‘nucleus’ means for a Second Fleet ship: Is it 10%, 30%, 50%, 70%? I think I have read somewhere else that it meant 50%, and I rather wonder what they all did every day.

Note 2. A Third-Fleet ship was not just left to decay until she was sold or scrapped (like the ships that are left nowadays in Fareham Creek.). She was maintained so that in the event of war she could become operational within a couple of weeks or less.

In the event of war ships of the Second and Third Fleets would of course need full crews. Bennett says that Second-Fleet ships would be ‘quickly manned by officers and men under training’, while Third-Fleet ships ‘depended on mobilization for their crews’.

Now I had always understood that at the beginning of July 1914 the Good Hope and the Monmouth were both in the Third-Fleet category and that, once war broke out, they were given crews consisting very largely (ie 90% or so) of mobilised reservists. But now that I’m looking in detail at the casualty lists from Coronel I think the truth may be different. Here are two hypotheses:

1. They weren’t both Third-Fleet ships: Good Hope was Third Fleet but Monmouth was Second Fleet. That is why the proportion of reservists on Good Hope seems to be much greater.
   
2. It wasn’t the case (as Bennett implies) that all or nearly all the empty places in the crew of Third-Fleet ships were filled by reservists. Many regulars were brought in too (and so the places they vacated on First-Fleet ships were taken by reservists.) That is why the proportion of reservists even on Good Hope seems to be much less than 90%.
   

I’m wondering how to test these hypotheses.

Bart

To quote the Admiralty letter to Commanders-in-Chief announcing the 1912 reorganisation of the Home Fleet:

2. The term "Division" will be restricted to its familiar signal-book meaning, as a tactical unit of variable quantity applicable to any part of a body of ships grouped together for tactical purposes. The terms 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Divisions of the Home Fleet as used hitherto will be abolished. In place thereof the Home Fleet will be divided into the First, Second, and Third Fleets, and ships will be classed in these Fleets according to status of commission in which they are maintained by Their Lordships: ships in the First Fleet being in permanent commission with full crews; ships in the Second Fleet being in commission with nucleus crews, and receiving full complements of active service ratings on mobilisation; ships in the Third Fleet being in commission or in "Matériel Reserve" and requiring reserve men on mobilisation. These Fleets are therefore administrative and not tactical classifications.

Good Hope was Second Fleet but placed in the Third Fleet for administrative purposes, and on the outbreak of war had been earmarked for refit as a training cruiser for naval cadets. Monmouth was definitely Third Fleet.

Simon

[Bart150]

Thanks, Horatio and Simon. Both very useful insights; I need to think about them some more.

Matthew, thanks. With your help I’ve managed to get ADM 104/145 now. So I now have three lists of casualties: 1, the CWGC list from Geoff’s Search Engine; 2, the Don Kindell list; 3, ADM 104/145.

There are some differences between 1 and 2, but nothing serious enough to affect the issue of whether the implied proportion of reservists is correct. I don’t know whether 3 is absolutely identical to 1 or to 2 or is slightly different from both (being handwritten it is awkward to work with). But a few cross-comparisons suggest that it is essentially the same as the other two as far as the implied proportion of reservists is concerned.

Bart