Britannia Royal Naval College; A Haunting Experience
- Dr Iain M Lightfoot
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
There are some experiences that never leave you, and nor should they! Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth is one of them for me and, truthfully, for many reasons. Having served there, I know the building not as a visitor or curious outsider, but as someone who has walked its corridors with purpose, with a familiar sense of routine.
BRNC is not simply an impressive old military establishment perched above the River Dart, it is far more than that. It is a place of deep history and meaning to those who have been through the training pipeline. A place where the cadets gain a sense of purpose, and feel a belonging to 'brothers and sister'. All Royal Naval Officers have trained at BRND, including all those members of the Royal Family who served, and all First Sea Lords etc. So, it is a place of memories, discipline, and, I would suggest, lingering energy.
Late one night, I returned there following a spot of leave.
As I moved through the rather familiar corridors, I found myself reflecting on just how much that building has seen over the year but beyond the military identity of the place, there is another deeper and more sombre side to BRNC, one that sits quietly beneath the surface.
The moment that struck me like a hammer blow happened as I walked through the halls and reached the quarterdeck landing. Without warning, I felt what I can only describe as a strong diagonal pull across my body, drawing me sideways toward the railings. It was lingering and very clear. This was not a stumble, it was not an imbalance, and certainly not a simple misstep. It felt like a huge force, a directional movement across me that did not belong to my own body mechanics.
Military training teaches you to notice things. You become attuned to space, movement, environment, and instinct. You learn not to overstate, but equally not to dismiss what you know you have felt and this was unusual, distinctly so.
I mentioned it to a few people I knew there. One of the other SUY (promoted from the ranks) trainees told me that his mother was a medium and that she had felt something in that same area only days earlier. A coincidence perhaps? That made me pause. Independent experiences in the same location always catch my attention. One person can be written off as imagination. Two or more begins to suggest a pattern or theme...
Later, while speaking informally with the Padre, or Bish, as we call them in the Royal Navy, I mentioned what had happened. His response was simple, but telling, “I thought that had stopped.”
That sentence stayed with me.
It implied familiarity and not surprise, not disbelief, but recognition. As though what I had experienced was not new at all, but something known and something spoken about quietly, something that had happened before in that area and then apparently gone quiet.
To understand the significance of that location, you have to understand the wartime history of BRNC. During the Second World War, the college was attacked by the Luftwaffe. In September 1942, bombs struck the main building, damaging the Quarterdeck and nearby rooms. One life was lost in that raid: Petty Officer Wren Ellen Whittall (Buried in Efford Cemetery, Plymouth). Then, in February 1943, another raid saw three bombs dropped on Dartmouth and the college, including the now well-known unexploded bomb that became known as “Hitler’s Gift to Dartmouth.”
I do believe that the environment remembers (stone tape theory). So, the buildings remember, the stone remembers, the atmosphere remembers. Do I believe what I felt was Ellen? No, I do not. My instinct says otherwise. What I felt did not seem personal in nature. It did not feel like communication from an individual spirit. It felt more like environmental residual force, as though the violence of the bombing had imprinted itself into that space and, on occasion, still replays in some form. A push. A pull. A directional surge of energy cutting across the landing in the same kind of pattern that explosive force might once have moved through that area. That, to me, is perhaps more chilling than the idea of seeing an apparition.
For me what is also curious is that this happened in June or July, not in September when people might naturally connect such an experience to an anniversary. There was no priming effect, no expectation, no atmospheric cue that invited the mind to create something that wasn’t there. It simply happened. As someone with significant military experience and many years now of paranormal investigation behind me, I have learned to sit in that uncomfortable middle ground, the place between scepticism and possibility. Not everything unusual is paranormal, although not everything can be neatly dismissed either.
This was one of those moments.
An interesting experience, certainly. A strange one, without question. Above all, it is a reminder that BRNC is not just a place of naval training and proud heritage, it is also a place marked by war, sacrifice, and memory. A service of remembrance is regularly held in BRNC at the place where she fell.
May Petty Officer Wren Ellen Whittall rest in peace, and may she always be remembered.
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