Navy Museum Wants Personnel's Stories From Coronavirus Fight Frontline

The National Museum of the Royal Navy is appealing for personnel to come forward with their stories from the frontline of the fight against coronavirus - a crisis that has been compared to other overseas emergencies.

At the height of the pandemic, teams were called on to carry out vital support roles including mobile testing, delivering key equipment, manufacturing PPE and staffing hospitals.

To showcase its vital contribution a special exhibit is being put together at the museum in Portsmouth.

Nick Hewitt, the Head of Collections and Research at the museum, said the reaction was similar to the emergency operations for natural disasters like the Royal Navy’s deployment in the Bahamas following Hurricane Dorian.

"This is an extraordinary event, that's unprecedented in the service's history and we know that the Royal Navy has been at the forefront of the Government's response to it," he said.

"[The] key difference is it’s right on our doorstep and where the services had to do this many, many times and is incredibly proficient at it, they haven’t had to do it at home very often.

"It's something that's impacting on all of us, so it's such an important story, really, to capture," he added.

The museum also wants to hear about the experiences of serving personnel’s families.

"We would like to talk [to] and capture the stories of their families," Mr Hewitt said.

"What’s it like for their wives, their husbands, their mothers, their fathers, their children, knowing that when everybody else has been told to lock themselves away... they've got to go and put themselves in harm’s way?"

The museum now hopes to create an archive of the Royal Navy's response to coronavirus to sit alongside other key moments in the service’s history.

Anyone wishing to register their interest in the National Museum of the Royal Navy's project can email: [email protected].