Hostilities Only by Brian Lavery

Training the Wartime Royal Navy

Over 1,000,000 people, 925,000 men and 86,000 women, served in the Royal Navy during WW2. Not as many as in the Army..3,000,000 nor the RAF…1,030,000. Even so a lot of people from all walks of life were to be inducted, trained and eventually let loose upon the High Seas.

Brian Lavery’s book begins by telling us of what the RN consisted of in 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War. Beginning with that, now famous signal, which flashed around the Fleet…, ”Winston is back.” On the 3rd September 1939 Winston Churchill was once again made the First Lord of the Admiralty.



Though the title of this book is ‘Hostilities Only’ it doesn’t just concern that particular group of people that were called up or were volunteers. The book is about all groups, the Royal Fleet Reserve (RFR), the retired ex Naval servicemen who were called back in. The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR),drawn from the Merchant and Fishing Fleets. Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), the amateur sailors who trained during peacetime and were ready to be there. The Royal Naval (wireless) Reserve, civilian radio operators who served, at first, as civilians on the ships, who were later incorporated into the RNVR. Not forgetting the conscripts, of course, lots of them who chose the RN as the service of preference.

This book deals with the logistical problems of training civilians and turning them into useful members of the RN. The diverse branches are dealt with in separate chapters ranging from Seaman and Signalmen, Engineers and Officers, Promotion, Flying Training, Royal Marines, Combined Operations, The Wrens and The Merchant Service. All of them having to find the facilities and staff, not to mention a place in which to train them. The placement and sheer number of establishments that were needed to cope with this massive influx of men and women and the expansion of the RN is mind boggling. It is amazing that so few round holes had square pegs driven into them.

Brian Lavery has packed the book with copious facts and figures, he tells of the characters who initiated various training programmes, the problems that they had and how those problems were, in the main, overcome.

As I read these tales of our wartime RN, I became aware of a theme that seemed to run through the book. One that seemed to keep raising it’s head every so often. How the ‘old Navy’ tried to come to terms with these new men. A great deal of comment was given to the fear, that the ‘old Navy’ had, that the Officer Class would be eroded, the traditions lost. Would these HO Officers fit in. Would Wardroom etiquette alter for the worse. It seemed to me that your position in society still played a large part of deciding who had a commission and who didn’t. Experience and talent that some of the Lower deckers ,who were right for promotion, had was no guarantee that they would get a commission.

I have only one complaint about this book, the print was way too small. Reading it became difficult, but that of course was due to my advancing years.

On the whole I found this book to be very informative, thought provoking and an insight into the truly amazing way that the Royal Navy coped during those traumatic years. 300 pages packed full of facts and figures, plus comments, along the way, from the people who served in our Service during those dark years.

Whoever said that ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ was wrong.

I give this book 4 anchors.

A review by ‘Granny’.



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