HMS Minstrel or HMS Martial

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.

Original research conducted by Gerry Costello In general what seems to have happened is that the older Acorn-class destroyers were progressively replaced by the new M-class destroyers as they emerged from build. The Acorns had formed the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla (DF), while the new Ms became the 11th DF but both flotillas used HMS Blake as depot ship. Once the Acorns had reached Devonport, they stayed there for a variable time before deploying to the Mediterranean, typically joining the 5th DF based on HMS Blenheim, although some are indicated as joining ‘the Adriatic squadron’. Records indicate that the 2nd and 11th flotillas were with the Grand Fleet, so presumably HMS Blake was based at Scapa Flow. In each case, sailors’ records show continuity of the depot ship, so it is deduced from this that men changed from old to new destroyers at Scapa, and spent little or no time at Devonport.

Despite her name, HMS Minstrel was not an M-class Destroyer, but one of the older Acorn-class. From April 1912 until December 1915 Minstrel was attached to the 2nd DF (Depot ship: HMS Blake) but in Jan 16 she was transferred to the 5th DF in the Mediterranean.

HMS Martial was one of the newer M-Class destroyers and was completed in October 1915, joining the newly formed 11th DF (Depot ship: HMS Blake shared with 2DF).

It therefore seems likely that any personnel whose records show Blake (Minstrel/Martial) would have transferred from the first to the second ship during the Oct-Dec 1915 period, while remaining under the administrative authority of HMS Blake. These personnel would therefore have been serving in Martial at Jutland.