A Navy Directory, formerly the Navy List or Naval Register is an official list of
naval
A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...
officers, their ranks and seniority, the ships which they command or to which they are appointed, etc., that is published by the government or naval authorities of a country.
Background
The Navy List fulfills an important function in
international law in that warships are required by article 29 of the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to be commanded by a
commissioned officer
An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service.
Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer, or a warrant officer. However, absent context ...
whose name appears in the appropriate service list.
Past copies of the Navy List are also important sources of information for historians and genealogists.
The Navy List for the Royal Navy is no longer published in hard-copy.
The
Royal Navy (United Kingdom) publishes annual lists of active and reserve officers, and biennial lists of retired officers. As of 2015, the Navy List of the Royal Navy has been renamed as the 'Navy Directory'.
The equivalent in the
United States Navy is the Naval Register, which is updated online on a continuous basis.
When a ship is removed from the ''
Naval Vessel Register'' in the United States, or from a naval list of any other country, the ship is said to be "
stricken
Stricken may refer to:
* "Stricken" (song), a 2005 song by Disturbed
* ''Stricken'' (2010 film), a 2010 American film directed by Matthew Sconce
* ''Stricken'' (2009 film), a 2009 Dutch drama film
* "Stricken", when a warship's name is removed ...
".
Resources
Good sources of historical data on the
Royal Navy ''Navy Lists'' are:
* The Naval Historical Branch, Portsmouth Naval Base.
* The Central Library Portsmouth, Guildhall Square.
*
The National Archives, Kew, that has an almost complete set including unpublished editions produced during the Second World War for internal use by the Admiralty.
* The Caird Library of the
National Maritime Museum has in its collection bound monthly lists published by the Admiralty, and the concurrently published Steel's Navy Lists
See also
*
Army List
* ''
Naval Vessel Register''
Citations
General and cited references
* ''The 1766 Navy List'', edited by E. C. Coleman, published by Ancholme Publishing, {{ISBN, 0-9541443-0-9
External links
US Naval Register(US Navy)
Useful resources and information, includes latest Navy Directory(Royal Navy)
Directories
Royal Navy
Ship registration
United States Navy