All the web sites are based on a standard page layout and structure.
And combine links to existing
content on the Internet with first hand accounts by veterans and the
families and unpublished documents in archives.
The focus will be on the stories of
the men who served on the V &Ws and the starting point are the articles
written by the members of the V & W Destroyer Association and published
in their journal Hard Lying but
if you have a family member who served on a V & W your first
priority should be to record their memories and scan their photographs
for the web site
You can help us build a site for a V & W on which a member of your family served
Web editing skills are not required - this will be done for you from the text and pictures you supply If possible supply text and photographs by e-mail attachment but they can also be sent by post
Content common to all the web sites and where to find it:
Photographs
Copyright belongs to the photographer who is often unknown
Commercial picture libraries rarely own copyright but still make a charge for use of images so are best avoided
Family photographs The quality may be poor but
photographs taken aboard ship on a box camera are often more
interesting than photographs of the ship taken by professionals E-mail a high resolution scan or post for scanning and return - e-mail Bill Forster (see below) for details
Photographs will be credited and copyright remains with your family
The Imperial War Museum http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search Most of the photographs in the IWM
are Crown Copyright which expires 50 years after they were taken but
the IWM extend copyright by claiming new copyright in prints and scans of the original in their collection but some
of their photographs are covered by the IWM
Non-Commercial Licence and can be used without payment of a fee.
For
further details see: http://www.iwm.org.uk/corporate/privacy-copyright/licence
Naval-history.net http://www.naval-history.net/ Search by ship name, click to enlarge image and download to your PC (take care to note source and credit).
Ships Pictures www.shipspictures.co.uk High res scans can be obtained for V & W ships from this site (£3 per image). V & Ws can be found here: http://www.shipspictures.co.uk/Warships/WWII/s-z/index.html# or by searching (with magnifying glass) by ship name. Locate the image and e-mail your order to: Peter Swarbrick <peter@swarbrick.com>
Whatever the source pictures should be credited, “Courtesy of –“
If scanning photograph lent by a
veteran or his family check reverse for copyright owner e.g. IWM stamp
(although Crown Copyright expires after 50 years the IWM may claim
copyright in the prints they supply)
Brief survey of ship’s service history
An introduction with links to pages on web site
This is the key as links can be provided from it to more detailed pages on the web site for the ship. You do
not need to be an expert on naval history to create a readable history
of "your ship" based on reliable source such as Navalhistory.net http://www.naval-history.net/ or entries on Wikipedia. All that is needed is an ability to write simple plain English.
Here is an example of how to search unithistories.com for officers on the V & W Class destroyer, HMS Woolston:
"Hms woolston" site:http://www.unithistories.com
You can then locate entries on each page with "find woolston" or Ctrl+F Woolston.
And create a direct link to these entries by copying and pasting -
the URL of the page followed by a # followed by last name underscore initials e.g. #Taylor_HA
e.g. http://www.unithistories.com/officers/RN_officersT.html#Taylor_HA
And e-mail the names and links for the service record of these officers to: venomous at holywellhousepublishing.co.uk
I shall then post the names with hot links to the entries in unithistories.com on the web site for your V & W destroyer
Substitute the name of your ship for Hms woolston in the above example
Navy Lists Online from the National Library of Scotland:
eg https://archive.org/details/navylistapr1945v3grea [April 1945, Volume 3] Select desired format e.g. Kindle, PDF, text, etc. but difficult to search.
Hard copies of quarterly Navy Lists at held at the NMM, National Archives, etc.
These are indexed by name and
arranged by ship and easy to search and photocopy or photograph with a
digital camera on copying stands (provided at the NA, Kew)
Personal stories of the men who served on the V & Ws
The starting point are the stories
by veterans published in Hard Lying, the magazine of the V & W
Destroyer Association, and republished in 2005 by the Chairman of the
Association, Clifford ("Stormy") Fairweather, in the book of the same
name. Vic Green, Secretary
of the V & W Destroyer Association, is creating separate folders
for V & W which feature in the book.
Families of the veterans who served on V & Ws They can often be contacted by Googling ship names or by joining forums such as – Uboat.net http://uboat.net World Naval Ships Forums http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/
Recorded interviews
Bill Forster has recorded
interviews with veteran members of the V & W Destroyer Association and you can listen to them on the web
page for their ship on the Association's web site
Why not
interview your family friend or relative yourself and send the digital recording to me on a DVD for adding to the web site? Or drive him to the next reunion of the V & W Destroyer Association so that I can interview him and he can meet fellow veterans
Or ask him to tell you his story, write it down and send to me for the web site
Many of their interviews have been digitised and can be listened to
online - and we plan to provide links to these interviews from the web page for their ship.
Send
me the results of your research as high res JPG and Word.doc for adding
to the ship’s entry on the V & W Destroyer Association’s web site And if you have any questions do get in touchwithBill Forster
Go to to the Index Page for the 69 V
& W Class Destroyers If
you have stories or photographs you would like to contribute to the web
site please contact Bill Forster
or Vic Green
