HMS Martin or HMS Mystic

A number of Royal Navy service records for ratings administered by the Depot ship identified in the table below show two (sometimes three) destroyer names across the dates of the Battle of Jutland. Further research is to be conducted relating to the history and programmes of the relevant destroyers in order to seek to understand whether each man was serving in a Jutland ship. Ships shown with links were at Jutland. Ratings impacted by these ships have been given a status of B (blue) on the Battle of Jutland Crew Lists project.

Despite the impression given by the initial letter of her name, HMS Martin was an Acorn-class destroyer of the 2nd DF from April 1912 until December 1915 when she was detached as a tender to HMS Vivid (Devonport) remaining there until Sep 1917 when a large part of the Flotilla moved to Buncrana, NI.

HMS Mystic was built at Denny’s of Dumbarton and completed in November 1915, joining the 11th DF which shared the depot ship HMS Blake with the 2nd DF.

It therefore seems likely that men with Blake (Martin/Mystic) on their service record transferred around November 1915 to the latter named ship. The CO, Cdr Claud Finlinson Allsup, is recorded as transferring from command of HMS Martin to HMS Mystic in October 1915.