Catalogue description Commander L Gardner OBE RN

Microfilm copy of three ms diaries (142pp, 47pp and 130pp) and thirteen ms letters to his family concerning his service as a midshipman initially in the cruiser HMS CORNWALLL (July 1914 - February 1915), with interesting descriptions of her deployment on patrol and shipping examination duties mainly in the South Atlantic, the effect of this monotonous routine on the morale of the ship's company, the additional discomforts of life at sea in wartime including an on-going feud between the midshipman and the 1st Lieutenant, and CORNWALL's pursuit and sinking of the German cruiser LEIPZIG at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914; and then, after CORNWALL had returned to Home waters, as a midshipman in HMS WARSPITE (5th Battle Squadron, Grand Fleet) from February 1915 - June 1916 with useful references to King George's visit to the Fleet in July 1915, two occasions when WARSPITE suffered damage as a result of errors in navigation, the social life of her midshipman afloat and ashore at Scapa Flow and his first reactions to the outcome of the Battle of Jutland. The microfilm also includes a copy of his ms diary (265pp) kept from September - December 1917 and October 1918 - August 1919 during his appointment as Flag Lieutenant to Vice Admiral (later Admiral of the Fleet) Sir Somerset Gough-Calthorpe, the Commander in Chief, Mediterranean and also, from November 1918, the British High Commissioner in Turkey, who flew his flag in the battleship HMS SUPERB and then HMS IRON DUKE, which contains details concerning the negotiations following Turkey's surrender, of civilian disturbances in Smyrna, of a tour of the Gallipoli battlefields and of Gardner's opinions of other Allied navies.

1WM Photograph Archive, Refs. (Q 95269-91)

Microfilms

Gardner, Lycett, 1897-1974, Commander RN

Unrestricted

• Dardanelles, Ottoman Empire
• First World War, 1914-1918
• Naval personnel