Gunner 1 - not an easy phrase to search for!

[Archer]

I told a friend this morning that HMS Gunner was the naval base at Granton. And that Gunner 1 was an accounting base attached to HMS Gunner.

But I feel uneasy, because I couldn't find a reference to Gunner 1 in the usual places.

Please will you steer me right?

 

[horatio2]

40 minutes ago, Archer said:

HMS Gunner was the naval base at Granton. And that Gunner 1 was an accounting base attached to HMS Gunner.

The Granton Base (HMS GUNNER) included a pay and accounting office which handled men on the base complement as well as men serving in tenders. It was commonplace for such pay offices to be subdivided into numbered sub-sections (cf VICTORY I, II, III etc) which were often co-located. I confess that I have never come across GUNNER I before but it is possible that GUNNER and GUNNER I were such sub-sections or even that GUNNER I was just GUNNER. The rating concerned here was borne as a List 14 Supernumerary.

[KizmeRD]

The harbour at Granton was an auxiliary patrol base from 14 August 1914 to 15 July 1919. The base initially held 29 trawlers and three yachts, employed in patrol work and minesweeping, and increased throughout the war to 300 ships by 1918. At its peak there were some 400 officers attached to what became known as HMS GUNNER (or Gunner I - the naval base and parent/administration unit), and about 8,000 men plus 300 Wrens. Granton boats were responsible for anti-submarine patrols, minesweeping in the Firth of Forth and also for operating the anti-submarine booms and mobile nets that were deployed to protect Rosyth and units of the Grand Fleet when exercising in the Forth.  A comparatively few number men actually served aboard HMT GUNNER (the Admiralty trawler after which the base was named).

MB

 

Edited 13 June , 2023 by KizmeRD

[Archer]

Thank you both, Gentlemen. 

There was something squeezed between Gunner I and Pembroke II which was somewhat ineffectually erased, but I cannot make it out from the monochrome copy of the service record available online.

Cheers! 

William 

 

Edited 13 June , 2023 by Archer