Catalogue description Commander V J Robinson RN

Mss memoirs (188 pp), a First World War journal (275 pp) and three pocket diaries covering his service as a cadet at Osborne and Dartmouth (May 1910 - April 1914) and in the training cruiser Cumberland (June - July 1914); as a midshipman in HMS Juno (Cruiser Force E) on patrol duties off the west coast of Ireland (August 1914 - January 1915) and in HMS Temeraire (4th Battle Squadron, Grand Fleet) from February 1915 to August 1916; as a junior officer in the Q-ship Aubrietia (Q 13) on anti-submarine patrols in the English Channel and S W Approaches (October - December 1916), in the destroyer Laertes attached to the Dover Patrol (January - June 1917) and to the 4th Destroyer Flotilla for convoy escort duties in the S W Approaches (July 1917 - June 1918); in HMS Retriever (10th Destroyer Flotilla, Harwich Force) from July 1918 to April 1919, in the light cruiser Calcutta, the flagship on the North America and West Indies Station (September 1919 - April 1921) and on the signalling course at Portsmouth (September 1921 - August 1922); as signalling officer in HMS Campbell (3rd Destroyer Flotilla) in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time of the Chanak crisis (October 1922 - March 1923) and, on recall, as the officer in charge of HM Signal School Devonport (1939-45). The collection includes good first hand accounts of the Battle of Jutland, the Swift and Broke action off Dover (April 1917), the loss of the destroyers Paragon, Laforey, Ulleswater and Scott in 1917-18, the surrender of U-boats at Harwich (November 1918) and conditions at North German ports after the Armistice.

Robinson, Vivian John, b 1897, Commander RN

Unrestricted

• Germany
• First World War, 1914-1918
• Naval personnel
• Battle of Jutland, 1916