Volume Six - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Select Aspects - The Royal Navy and Royal Naval Reserve Fleet at Penarth Dock

In October 1954, the Portsmouth Navy News [262] (the official newspaper of the Portsmouth Command) ran an article entitled 'The Reserve Fleet.' I thought it useful to commence the story of the Royal Naval Reserve Fleet at Penarth Dock with this article in its entirety.

The Reserve Fleet - 'The Royal Navy has from earliest times maintained ships in reserve with the object of being able to replace ships of the seagoing fleet which require repairs or long refits, and of having spare ships ready to be manned by the Naval Reserves - Royal Fleet Reserve, Royal Naval Reserve, and Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve - who would be called up on mobilisation.

When the war with Germany and Japan came to an end in 1945, the Royal Navy was six times its pre-war size, and as the release programme progressed, the majority of the ships in commission had to be paid-off until the peace-time seagoing fleet was reduced to the size we could afford to man with our post-war Navy. Those ships which were worn out or for various reasons would not be required in a future war were scrapped, but this left over 300 ships and major landing craft to be placed in reserve - the bulk of them being destroyers and frigates, ships bound to be badly needed for convoy and anti-submarine duties in any future struggle. The task of keeping these immobilised ships ready to be commissioned in the shortest possible time has obviously an importance second to none in the Naval Service and while the officers and ratings whose task it is are denied the excitements and changes of scene that their opposite numbers in the seagoing fleets enjoy, they have the satisfaction of knowing that their work is absolutely essential to the Navy and that the power of the Navy to expand in the early days of a war depends on how they are fulfilling the trust that is placed in them.

Changes since 1939 - In 1939 we had a comparatively small Reserve Fleet which was maintained in running order by considerably larger crews than are allowed to ships in reserve today. Various inevitable changes in the Navy since 1939 have increased the proportion of billets in shore service to those in seagoing ships, and it would be quite impossible to provide crews on the 1939 scale to the ships of the immensely larger Reserve Fleet we have today (1954).