After the First World War, an appropriate way had to be found of commemorating those members of the Royal Navy who had no known grave. An Admiralty committee recommended that the three manning ports in Great Britain - Chatham, Plymouth and Portsmouth - should each have an identical memorial of unmistakable naval form, an obelisk, which would serve as a leading mark for shipping. After the Second World War it was decided that the naval memorials should be extended to provide space for commemorating the naval dead without graves of that war. Plymouth Naval Memorial commemorate 7,251 sailors of the First World War and almost 16,000 of the Second World War.