The First World War at Sea: Death, Commemoration and Cultural Remembrance

Despite the ever-increasing body of work devoted to war memorials, national days of remembrance and the commemoration of the First World War in Britain, academic focus remains firmly on the commemoration of the First World War on land. Yet, while the number of people who died at sea paled in comparison to their counterparts on the battlefield and in the trenches, the Royal Navy remained Britain's senior service after 1918 and continued to occupy an important place in the national consciousness. As such, the commemoration of the First World War at sea is a crucial, if largely underexplored, area of inquiry. While some contemporary observers feared that Britain was ‘apt to forget the sailors’, a diverse and influential series of remembrance practices were established (and adapted) after 1918 to incorporate the memory and lived experiences of those who died at sea – at least in the case of white British sailors – into wider memorial and national narratives. This article examines key forms of commemoration and cultural remembrance: monuments and memorials, popular civic ritual, historical pageantry, re-enactments and ‘battle reconstruction’ films. As the article illustrates, exploring the place of the sailor and the sea in the post-war commemorative landscape reveals much about the contested and complex cultural legacies of the First World War, the ongoing resonance of the navy in post-war popular culture and the war's broader impact on British society.