History
It was formed in August 1914 from the First Fleet and elements of the Second Fleet of the Home Fleets and it included 35–40 state-of-the-art capital ships. It was initially commanded by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. He was succeeded by Admiral Sir David Beatty in 1916.
The Grand Fleet was based first on Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands and later at Rosyth on the Firth of Forth and only took part in one fleet action during the war - the indecisive Battle of Jutland.
In April 1919 the Grand Fleet was disbanded with much of its strength forming a new Atlantic Fleet.
Read more about this topic: Grand Fleet
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am forced to fret over insufficient details related to large
Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
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—John Ashbery (b. 1927)