An Admiralty committee recommended building memorials at the three main naval ports in Great Britain – Plymouth, Chatham, and Portsmouth.

Sir Edward Maufe performed the architectural design for the expansion at Plymouth, and the sculpture was by Charles Wheeler and William McMillan.

[1] The work was carried out by Martyns[2] The Plymouth memorial also bears the names of sailors from Australia, South Africa, and India.

[1] Other memorials in Halifax and Victoria in Canada, Auckland, New Zealand, Mumbai, India, Chittagong, Bangladesh, and Hong Kong commemorate sailors who came from those parts of the Commonwealth.

The memorial features a central obelisk, with names of the dead arranged according to the year of death.