Royal Navy operations and policy after 1945

1. High Command - Cabinet

The Cabinet and the relevant cabinet committees are the most senior strategy and policy decision-making bodies. The Cabinet would generally review such matters as the annual Defence White Paper, Defence Reviews and major decisions concerning significant military deployments. Most other defence policy matters after 1945 were increasingly dealt with by the Defence Committee (or its successor, the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee).

CAB 128 and CAB 129 are available on open access in the Open Reading Room at The National Archives.

2. High Command - Ministry of Defence and Admiralty committees

The Chiefs of Staff Committee consisted of the professional heads of the three armed services. Its role was to provide advice on defence matters to the Prime Minister and government, and from 1958 was led by a Chief of Defence Staff chosen, usually in rotation, from one of the three services.

The Defence Board was created in 1958 and included all the service ministers, the service chiefs and senior officials. This unwieldy body was renamed the Defence Council in 1964 and in wide-ranging reforms officially took over the executive roles previously held by the three independent armed services ministries.

Also in 1964, the Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry were merged into a single Ministry of Defence headed by a cabinet minister. The Board of Admiralty was dissolved and replaced by the Admiralty Board, a sub-committee of the Defence Council.

DEFE 4 and DEFE 5 are indexed, and up to 1967 these indexes can be searched amongst the Supplementary Finding Aids in the Open Reading Room at the National Archives. After 1970, agenda items for these meetings are listed in Discovery, our catalogue, and in the paper indexes at the National Archives.

Also of interest are the Secretary of the Chiefs Of Staff Committee's Standard Files (DEFE 32) that contain minutes and memoranda of sufficient sensitivity to be stored separately from the records held in DEFE 4 and DEFE 5.

3. High Command - Ministry of Defence and Admiralty subject files

With the centralisation of the Ministry of Defence in 1964, the Royal Navy lost its own dedicated civilian bureaucracy, which now passed under the control of the Ministry of Defence and was amalgamated with the bureaucracies of the former War Office and Air Ministry. As a result, the types of operational and policy matters that would have been found in ADM 1, ADM 116 and ADM 205 would, after 1964-65, be more likely to be found under various DEFE series.

Registered files and Private Office papers contain letters, reports and memoranda on a particular subject collated into a single folder or file. In searching for files within these series it is recommended to search our catalogue using a key word or key phrase search restricted to the relevant series reference. Important series include:

4. Specific operations and campaigns

Key word searches in our catalogue using the terms 'Suez' or 'Musketeer' (and restricted to the date periods 1956-1957) in the Registered Files and Private Office papers will yield papers relating to the Suez operations of 1956. Similar key word searches for other operations and engagements such as the Yangtse incident ('Yangtse' or 'Amethyst', 1949-1950), Indonesian confrontation ('Indonesia' 1963-1965), Biera patrol ('Biera' 1965-1974) etc. will also yield results.

Papers relating to the second and third Cod Wars have not yet been released.

5. Overseas fleet and station records

Records for other stations and commands can be found by searching ADM 1 and ADM 116 using a key word or phrase search in our catalogue (for example, using 'West Indies' or 'South Atlantic' as key phrases).

6. Ships' logs, Courts Martial and Boards of Inquiry

Ships' logs (ADM 53) and submarine logs (ADM 173) generally contain navigational and routine material, but sometimes can include more specific information on particular incidents. Court Martial records can be found in ADM 156 (before 1964-65) and ADM 330 (after 1964-65). Often, the names of those on trial and the ship in question are listed in our catalogue, so a search using such names as the key word could yield results. Boards of Inquiry records can be found in ADM 178 (up to 1951), and ADM 330 (generally after 1970), in addition to ADM 1 and ADM 116. As with searching for Court Martial records, names of ships and men are often listed in the catalogue, so a key word search can be beneficial. For example, searching ADM 116 with the key word 'Affray' will produce the records (ADM 116/5899) of the Board of Inquiry relating to the accidental loss of this submarine in 1951.

7. Royal Marines

Unit War Diaries, similar to those kept for the British Army, provide a day-by-day operational account for units involved in active duties overseas. The Unit Newsletters are internally distributed official magazines written by and for each Commando: they often contain details of operations as well as social and sporting activities.

8. Fleet Air Arm

The squadron records provide a day-by-day operational account of individual squadrons; a number are unofficial accounts and provide varying degrees of detail on recreational and social activities. In addition to standard operational reports, ADM 335 also includes accounts of aircraft trials, a few squadron histories and accident summaries from 1967 onwards. Accident summaries from 1953 to 1955 can be found in ADM 1/24542-24600 and ADM 1/25320-25360, whilst using a key phrase search in ADM 1 ('aircraft accidents') in our catalogue will yield pieces relating to accidents from 1943 to 1962. ADM 335/1 is a history of the Fleet Air Arm 1912-1965.

9. Other archives and information sources

The National Maritime Museum (Greenwich, London SE 10 9NF, Tel 020 8312 6750) and the Royal Naval Museum (HM Naval Base (PP 66), Portsmouth, PO1 3NH, Tel 023 9272 7577) hold considerable archives relating to naval operational matters, including private papers and other donated collections. In addition, the Royal Marines Museum (Southsea, PO 4 9XP, Tel 023 9281 9385), the Fleet Air Arm Museum (Records and Research Centre, Box D 6, RNAS Yeovilton, Ilchester, BA 22 8HT, Tel 01935 840565) and Royal Navy Submarine Museum (Haslar Jetty Road, Gosport, Hampshire, PO12 2AS, Tel 023 9252 9217), hold collections relating to their respective specialisations.

The National Register of Archives and the Access to Archives database are important guides to the records available across the United Kingdom and can also be useful resources.

10. Further reading

Eric Grove, Vanguard to Trident (Naval Institute Press, 1987)

Bill Jackson & Dwin Bramall, The Chiefs: the Story of the United Kingdom Chiefs of Staff (Brassey's, 1992).