Charles Bertram Jones was only 16 years old when he joined the British Navy on January 31, 1911. As his service record shows, he was all of 5 feet, 6 ¼ inches tall, held a rating of “Boy second class”, and reported to the HMS Impregnable, which was one of several admiralty-operated centres that provided pre-sea training to boys as young as fifteen. At the time, the British Navy was considered to be the strongest in the world. Ever since the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, no other nation had been able to challenge British naval supremacy.