Tweedy entered the Royal Navy in 1891 and witnessed the collision and sinking of HMS Victoria while serving in the earlier HMS Dreadnought. Appointments in HMS Rodney, the sailing corvette HMS Active, and numerous destroyers carried him from late-Victorian seamanship into industrial war. By the end of the First World War, he was a commodore responsible for Grand Fleet flotillas totaling about 150 destroyers. He later returned during the Second World War as a convoy commodore associated with the Liverpool and Cardiff pools. That range of command experience helps explain how he maintained morale and effectiveness aboard the notoriously unreliable Marshal Ney.
Chapter · 30:45-35:54
Hugh Tweedy's career from Victorian ships to Grand Fleet destroyers
Captain Hugh Tweedy's wide-ranging service explains the experience behind his ability to keep Marshal Ney useful despite the monitor's severe defects.