The recruits included regular marines and those mobilised from the Fleet Reserve; each battalion was drawn from one of the big naval depot ports—Chatham, Portsmouth, Plymouth and Deal—and named accordingly.

The eight battalions were named after naval commanders, Drake, Benbow, Hawke, Collingwood, Nelson, Howe, Hood and Anson, later being numbered from 1st to 8th.

Many of the trained men were then reclaimed for fleet service and recruits were taken over at the request of the War Office, from oversubscribed north country regiments.

Training was slow, except for the Marine Brigade which had its own infrastructure, because resources were needed for the rapid expansion of the army and naval ratings were not issued with field equipment or khaki uniforms before being embarked for overseas service.

[4] Rifles were drawn from Royal Navy stocks and only arrived at the end of September; these were older Charger-Loading Lee–Enfields rather than the modern Short Magazine Lee–Enfields issued to the army.

On 24 August, German cavalry patrols were reported near Ostend and it was decided to land a small naval detachment to secure the town.

The British forces under the command of Major-General Archibald Paris were ordered by Winston Churchill to continue the defence for as long as possible and to be ready to cross to the west bank (near The Netherlands frontier) rather than surrender.

At 9:30 p.m. the mistake was realised as the rest of the division began to cross the river from 10:00–11:30 p.m. and moved west, parallel to the Netherlands frontier.

[11] The men were to spend the rest of the war at Groningen, where they were held in a camp they dubbed HMS Timbertown, a name inspired by the wooden huts where they were quartered.

[13] Casualties before the campaign began included Rupert Brooke, who died at sea from an infected mosquito bite on 23 April 1915.

Eleven troopships and Canopus, Dartmouth and Doris, two destroyers and trawlers rendezvoused off Bulair before dawn and the warships began a day-long bombardment, just after daybreak.

In the late afternoon men began to embark on the boats, which headed for the shore just before dark and returned after night fell.

During the night Lieutenant-Commander Bernard Freyberg swam ashore and lit flares along the beach, crept inland and observed the Ottoman defences.

[15] After the evacuation of Gallipoli, the RND moved to France where it participated in the final phase of the Battle of the Somme, advancing along the River Ancre to capture Beaucourt.

When the battle began in the early hours of 13 November, platoons from the 1st RMLI crawled across no-man's land towards the German line.

Shute was appalled by the un-military "nautical" traditions of the division and made numerous unpopular attempts to stamp out negligent hygiene practices and failures to ensure that weapons were kept clean.

[24] On the north bank of the Ancre, the 63rd Division attacked on 17 February, with the 188th Brigade and two battalions of the 189th Brigade, to capture 700 yards (640 m) of the road north from Baillescourt Farm towards Puisieux, to gain observation over Miraumont and form a defensive flank on the left, back to the existing front line.

The creeping barrage moved at 100 yards (91 m) in four minutes, slower than the rate on the south bank and the Germans in a small number of strong-points were quickly overcome.

The centre of the attack was held up on the road between Bray Farm and the village of Wallemolen and the troops dug-in near Source Trench.

Organisation at the end of July 1916 on the Western Front, having been renamed the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division and transferred to Army command.