Edward Keble Chatterton (1878–1944), a naval writer, was an LtCdr RNVR and commanded a drifter during WWI.
a prolific writer who published around a hundred books, pamphlets and magazine series, mainly on maritime and naval themes.
Born in Sheffield, England, he attended St Paul's School, Hammersmith, London and took a B.A. at Oxford before beginning to write theatre and art reviews for various magazines. He undertook a number of small-boat voyages through the English Channel and the Netherlands and out of these voyages came magazine articles and books describing the passages as well as several books on the maritime art collections of the Low Countries.
At the outbreak of the First World War, Chatterton joined the R.N.V.R., ultimately commanding a Motor Launch flotilla at Queenstown, now Cobh, in Ireland. He describes these years in Q-Ships and their Story (1922), The Auxiliary Patrol (1924) and Danger Zone: The Story of the Queenstown Command (1934). He left the service in 1919 with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
In the inter-war years, his output was continuous, and included a series of monographs on model ships, many narrative histories of naval events, and a number of juvenile novels. Most of his books were republished in the United States and several were translated into French and German editions.
After 1939, his writings focused on the conflict with Germany. Hutchinsons published a series documenting the Royal Navy at war, which was completed by Kenneth Edwards following Chatterton's death in 1944.