The Online Book of Remembrance

The Online Book of Remembrance is now live. It all started with a need for a complete and accurate record of all those who had lost their life during submarine service, which could be easily updated to correct any inaccuracies – which have been found to be all too plentiful on the current Memorial Wall at the Museum.

You can access the OBOR at submarinefamily.uk/remembrance or by simply pointing your smartphone camera at this QR code. You will then be able to read the story of the development of the OBOR, a short history of the Submarine Service, by Iain Ballantyne, and browse the contents.

The OBOR contains the names of over 5,900 submariners and over 450 units in which they served, including 174 submarines which sank in peace or wartime. Each unit and each submariner has their own page which can contain pictures and stories. Each unit page lists those from that unit who died. Any visitor to the OBOR is also able to submit comment and pictures to enhance the entries about an individual submariner or a submarine. Do have a look!

The OBOR is an element of The Submarine Family (TSF)’s new Website and hosted on their Servers. Its development is being funded by the ‘Friends of the Submarine Museum’. Both the TSF site and OBOR have been managed by the huge efforts of our Digital Lead, Tom Herman. The ‘Friends’ Treasurer (Peter Jeanneret) has been responsible for collating the data that is now contained within OBOR. This started nearly a year ago by entering into a database all the names on the Submarine Museum Memorial Wall, assisted by Jock McLees. There has been considerable checking to iron out the many errors, omissions, and duplications. In this work there has been a major contribution by Barrie Downer and Malcolm Blenkinsopp, both of whom have been researching details of deceased submariners for many years.

We think that the data is now close to being as accurate as it could get but please contact us by email to obor@submarinefamily.uk if you can provide any further information, particularly stories and pictures of people and units where we currently don’t have them. We hope that work will soon start on the Project to replace the Submarine Museum Memorial Wall with better quality engraved stone or slate panels, and the effort to get the OBOR data in good shape will allow us to provide an accurate list of names for this new wall.