A Naval Interlude

A “Snottie” at the surrender – narrated by David Robertson

Midshipman Adam spent his “gap year” between school and university serving with the 20th destroyer flotilla based out of Immingham. He kept a diary at the time, and years later edited it as a manuscript covering his experiences of the war.

The 20th destroyer flotilla were specialist high-speed minelayers. Their modified destroyers could cross the North Sea under cover of darkness, lay mines in German waters then return safely before daylight – or that was the plan.

The flotilla laid a total of 23,136 mines in the course of the war.

Admiral Beatty acknowledged their role in keeping the High Seas fleet bottled up in harbour by inviting them to the surrender pageant on November 21st 1918.

Here is a recording of the final chapter of his diary, covering the Surrender of the German High Seas Fleet in the Forth, November 2018.

You can listen to other audio accounts of the surrender from Lord Cameron, Commodore Tweedie and his daughter Mona who was eight at the time.

You can listen to extracts from Adam’s diary describing the exploits of the 20th destroyer flotilla – “Heroes of Heligoland”