Ships
- HMNZS Achilles (70) Captain from 15 October 1940 · Relieved on 15 April 1942
Hugh Merriman Barnes had HMNZS Achilles from 15 October 1940. He was in command when the ship was transferred to the Eastern Fleet on 8 December 1941, the day after the Pacific war opened for the Royal Navy's count of it, and he left her in April 1942, before she went up to the Solomons.
Uboat.net and the unithistories.com Navy List compilation agree that he was born on 21 March 1893 at Winchmore Hill, in the Edmonton district of Middlesex. Unithistories names his parents as Edward Daniel Barnes (1864–1938) and Lily Evelyn Hands (1863–). He died on 28 April 1968 in the Surrey South Western district.
Unithistories dates his entry into the Royal Navy to 15 January 1906. Uboat.net's rank line runs midshipman on 15 January 1911, sub-lieutenant on 15 March 1914, lieutenant on 15 March 1916, lieutenant-commander on 15 March 1924, commander on 30 June 1930, and captain on 30 June 1937. From 12 July 1918 he was gunnery officer and senior lieutenant of the flotilla leader Swift. He commanded the destroyer Vivacious in the Mediterranean from 1 May 1926, and Wishart from August 1928. He was training commander of the Nore Command from 19 January 1931, and commanded Echo in the Home Fleet from 30 April 1935. In March 1938 he took the Senior Officers' War Course at Greenwich. From 1 September 1938 he was lent to the New Zealand naval forces as commanding officer of Philomel and naval officer in charge at Auckland.
He took Achilles on 15 October 1940. Uboat.net ends that command on 16 April 1942. The unithistories compilation, drawn from the Navy Lists, ends it on 15 April 1942, and that is the date used here. The ship spent his time in her on South American and South Pacific trade protection and, after December 1941, on escort work under the Eastern Fleet and then back in the ANZAC area. He did not have her for the bomb hit off Guadalcanal. From 10 October 1942 he commanded Lochinvar and was captain-in-charge at Port Edgar. In February 1944 he was at the Admiralty, borne in President. By July 1945 the list places him in the fleet repair ship Vindictive. Uboat.net dates his retirement to 2 October 1945. Unithistories only brackets it as after July 1945 and before April 1946. On 26 August 1947 he received King Haakon VII's Liberty Medal for services to Norway in 1942 and 1943.
The pages fetched for him stop at the Norwegian medal and the death in Surrey in 1968. They do not say what he did between retirement and that date.