ADMIRALS ALL

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13308, 7 April 1941, Page 4

ADMIRALS ALL

KEEPING THE SEAS MEN OF SALT BREED BULLDOGS OP OUR NAVY Cunningham, Tovey, Somerville. Admirals all, they keep the seas for Britain. And, as they say in the Navy, a jolly good show they put up, too, remarks a special correspondent of the Sydney “Telegraph.” Admiral Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham, D.S.O. (57), is—as w© and the Italians have had impressed upon us lately—Commander-iu-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. Admiral John Cronyn Tovey, C. 8., D.S.O. (56), is Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet; the man who will direct Britain’s sea operations against Hitler’s attempted invasion of England —if it comes. And Vice-Admiral Sir James Fownes Somerville, D.S.O. (59), is in charge of the Western Mediterranean Fleet.

Work in Destroyers The Navy knew all about “A.B.’s” pugnacity long before he became Mediterranean C.-in-C. During the Dardanelles offensive in 1915, he was captain of the destroyer ;Scorpion, which was regarded at the most efficient ship of Captain Goode’s very efficient Fifth Destroyer Flotilla. For his destroyer work at the Dardanelles, and in the Dover Patrol when he was a lieutenant-commander Cunningham won the D.S.O. and two hars. Admiral Cunningham is essentially a salt-water man. He dislikes office routine, and almost alone among today’s senior naval officers he has had only one brief spell at the Admiralty. He was Rear-Admiral Commanding Destroyer Flotillas/ Mediterranean Fleet, from 1933 to 1936; and Vice-Admiral Commanding the Battle Cruiser Fleet and Second-in-Com-mand of the Mediterranean Fleet from* 1937 to 1938. Then he went to the Admiralty, in November, 1938, as Deputy-Chief of the Naval Staff, but a few months later he, was given the Mediterranean post, and, to his delight, was afloat again.

Tovey of the Onslow

Admiral Tovey’s career and that of Admiral Cunningham have been curiously parallel. Both have been captains in command of destroyer flotillas, both have been captain of the battleship Rodney,, both have been RearAdmiral commanding destroyers in the Mediterranean, and both, in their rare spells ashore, have been Commodore of the Royal Naval Barracks, Chatham.

Tovey first came into prominence as lieutenant-commander in charge of the destroyer Onslow at the Battle of Jutland. While Admiral Sir David Beatty was forging ahead of German Admiral Hipper’s ships, Onslow was detailed to assist the seaplane-carrier Engadine. The job done, Commander Tovey, unattached to any flotilla, sighted the German light cruiser Wiesbaden at 6000 yards, which was apparently trying to torpedo Admiral Beatty’s flagship Lion.

Acting on his own initiative, Commander Tovey steamed out and engaged the more heavily armed German cruiser, pouring about 58 4in. shells into her. - When he had battered the enemy Tovey swung Onslow round and charged some German battle-cruisers coming up behind. He ordered all torpedoes to be fired, but just as he gave the order a heavy shell struck his ship amidships. In the confusion, only one of the torpedoes w r as fired. But, thinking that all had been released, Commander Tovey, with Onslow almost broken in two, began to crawl away.

It was then reported to him that three loxpeuots remained, wneieupon tn© Inaeiatigable Tovey again approached the battered W eisbaden and finished her off with a torpedo. Then, turning on the Battle Fleet, Tovey fired his two remaining torpedoes at the enemy’s battleships. just as the steam failed in Onslow’s battered boilers. Onslow was taken in tow. The whole gallant exploit was observed by Rear-Admiral Napier, commander of the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron, and Tovey was mentioned in dispatches. Oran and Genoa Vice-Admiral Somerville’s first prommeuc appearance in this war s operations was a sensation. in. juiy, 19 40, he took his ships to oran (Algeria), after the capitulation of France, called on Frencn warstups there to submit, and, when they refused, turned his guns on tnem. A- battleship of the Strasbourg class (26,500 tons) was damaged and beached, a battleship of the Bretagne class (22,189 tons) was sunk, while several other units were sunk or smashed.

Then, in October, Admiral Somerville attempted to engage Mussolini’s navy off Sardinia, but, like Admiral Cunningham, he could only chase the faster and frantically-fleeing “rulers of the Mediterranean.” In February this year Admiral Somerville commanded British warships that hurled more than 300 tons of heavy shells into vital military targets at Genoa (north-west Italy). This was a particularly audacious action, because, to shell -Genoa, one of Italy’s most important naval bases the British ships had do steam the length of the Italian west coast to the head of the Gulf of. Genoa.. In the last war Admiral Somerville, then a commander under Sir Charles Monro, was fleet wireless officer for the Dardanelles operations. He carried out with conspicuous efficiency “duties of exceptional difficulty”; earned the D.S.O. Like Admirals Cunningham and Tovey, Somerville has been commander of destroyer flotillas in the Mediterranean Fleet. To-day we have pride and confidence in these men of the salty breed, who are living up to the traditions of Drake, Nelson, Rodney and Hood and who fulfil Dartmouth Naval College’s modest little boast; “There’s nothing that the navy cannot do.” Admiral Tovey is the elder brother of Dr. A. H. Tovey of 11th Avenue.