3.
Mar. 8, 2015

I write about my grandfather, W. E. Dadd, who was a Petty Officer on the Inflexible during the WWI. I have really only started the look into this, but already new that he served in the Falklands battle in 1914 and that later he was in the Dardenelles before going up to Rutland. That much he told me before he died in the 60s but my mother, who died at 94 a year ago remembers that William Dadd, her father was stationed in Malta for a while because she lived there having traveled with her mother as well on the BI SS Morvada. Obviously this was after the war, but my grandfather's uniform cap was still the Inflexible.

I read that she was scrapped in 1921 so I am assuming that this posting was immediately after the ship was decommissioned. As a boy, my grandfather was endless source of stories, most of which I was later to realize had to be taken with salt, but there was one that was actually verified by the Imperial War Museum. The story was that my grandfather and some of the crew were playing cards with a visiting crew from a German ship and then war was declared and so the Germans left, sailed away and the started shelling the Inflexible. For all sorts of reason that bit is fanciful, but my grandfather had a fragment of a shell that hit the ship mounted on a piece of oak which he kept on the mantelpiece for all to see until he died. He said that this was from a German ship and that the shell had hit the side of the ward room. Whatever.. my mother sent the fragment to the museum  with a note task their view. A letter returned three months later to say that the fragment had been carefully studied and compared and that in the view of the ballistic expert associated with the museum, this was most likely exactly as described. They even gave the type of shell and the gun it would have been fired from as being that on a German frigate.

I have looked through he gallery on your site at the pictures of the Inflexible, but would be most interested to learn more; even to find a crew listing. I visited the Britannia in Edinburgh recently and on the wall there were diagrams of the various Fleet Reviews. We found the Apollo which was captained by my wife's Great Uncle - Vallings and although the other In.. ships were present, the Inflexible was not on the 53 review obviously.

Thought you may be interested and if you can point me to more information then that would be much appreciated.

Best wishes,
Adrian Wood

2.
June 10, 2013

I would just like to say what an awesome website. My grandfather TW Wright was on the HMS Inflexible. When a picture of the Inflexible fell off the wall in the family home one day, on the back of it was a map of the route they sailed.

Audrey Littlewood
New Zealand

1.
Apr. 24, 2011

I just found a book Burney's Young Seamans Manual and Riggers Guide, the inscription inside a first class boy who was killed 10th april 1884, the book was owned by him and has a message etc. Wanted to maybe get it to possible surviving family or some such.

Andy