How Tribal-class crews became the elite of the elite

Clarke argues that Tribal-class crews expected themselves to lead because the Royal Navy presented them as the elite within an already aggressive destroyer culture. At Narvik, HMS Eskimo continued the action after losing her bow rather than stopping in the path of the destroyers behind her. She turned, fired her torpedoes, and advanced stern-first at an angle that kept her remaining weapons in action. The behavior did not depend on selecting only exceptional personnel; joining a Tribal encouraged good officers and sailors to demand exceptional conduct from themselves. Bennett traces that expectation through the Harwich Force destroyer tradition to the older Nelsonian injunction to engage the enemy more closely.