"SILENT BUT ALERT."

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16646, 3 September 1914, Page 4

"SILENT BUT ALERT."

ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JELLICOE. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE BRITISH COMMANDER. Vice-Admiral Sir John Rusbworth Jellicoe, who is in command of the Home Fleet, was described in a recent cable message as " silent but alert, a man of rigorous and decided character, a cool administrator, with determination and judgment. There is nothing spectacular about his ideas qn warfare; and his motto is 'Strike, strike hard, and strike again.'" Admiral Jellicoe has had a notable • career during his forty years' connection with the senior service, and the esteem in whioh he is held ra official ciroles was shown in 1911, when he was appointed oyer the heads of eleven vice-admirals to the command of the Second Squadron of the Home Fleet, and again about eighteen months ago, when ne was appointed Second Sea Lord, Born in 1859, he is the son of Captain J. H. Jellicoe, himself an old sailor. He entered the Royal Navy as a cadet, in 1872, passing out of the Britannia first of a batch by over 100 marks. In the examination for sub-lieutenant, which rank he attained six years later, he took three firsts., He was promoted to a lieutenancy in 1880, and two years later as a lieutenant on ba-n-d the Aginoourt, he served in the Egyptian war, and was awarded the Egyptian medal and Khedive's browse star. On his return to England he studied for a time at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, where he won a special (£Bo).pr(Cse for gunnery lieutenants. In 1886, while serving on board the Monarch, he won the Board of Trade silver medal for gallantry in saving, life at sea by commanding a gig which went to the rescue of a stranded ship near Gibraltar, the sea being so rough at the time that the boat was capsized t although all the crew succeeded in gaining the shore. Gaaetted a commander in 1891, he wis for a time employed as assistant to the Director of Naval Ordnance, being subsequently appointed first to the San Pareil, and later to the ill-fated Victoria, Admiral Tiyon's flagship on the Mediterranean station, which in June, 1893, was lost off Tripoli, on the Syrian coast, as the result of a collision with the Camperdown, when the admiral, twenty-one officers and three hundred and fifty men were drowned. At the time, of the collision, Admiral Jellicoe was on the sick list in his .cabin, apd when tho ship sank he, with the aid of a midshipman, managed to keep afloat till picked up. Four years later, after serving as commander of i the Ramillies, flagship in the Mediterranean, he attained the rank of captain (1897), and was immediately appointed to the Ordnance Committee. He had not long to wait for further employment afloat, as Admiral Sir E. H. Seymour secured him as flag captain on board the Centurion, on the China station. During the expedition to succour the Legations at Pekin in 1900. in whictt he narrowly escapea! death by a severe gunshot wound, Captain Jellicoe commanded the Naval Brigade, and acted as Chief Staff Officer, when he gained/not only the 0.8., but was awarded by the German Emperor the second class of the Red Eagle with cross swords. Returning from China at the end of 1901, he was appointed to superintend the building of ships of war. He afterwards served for a time as Naval Assistant to the Controller of j tho Navy; then, in 1903, waa appointed to tho command of. the Drake, and two years later took up the post of Director of Naval Ordnance and Torpedoes.

Much has been said in recent years about the improvement of shooting in the Navy, ana in this connection groat praise is due to Vice-Ad miral Jellicoe. Without his help the good work fostered by Vice-Admiral Sir Percy Scott and others would have been heavily handicapped—in fact, it is' said, impossible; for the then Director of Naval Ordnance proved himself a man of original thought aud prompt action, and one of the most capable gunnery experts- in the Navy. During the time he was in command of the Drake he turned it into one of the best shooting ships in the Navy, and while he was at the Admiralty as Director of Naval Ordnance, he did all that was pbsible to ensure the guns mounted in ships in the first fighting line hoing fitted with the most up-to-date day and night sights, as well as to instal a fire control set of instruments in each chip for "spotting", and controlling at long-range shooting. The fittings of the guns and appliances generally were also greatly improved during the tenure of his appointment.

It was Admiral Jellicoe, too, who brought the annual. gunnery practice scheme to completion, and instituted for tho first time in the British Navy the publication, not only of the results of the various practices, for general circulation, but details regarding the relative positions of tho ships and of the fleets. Now a copy of the results is hung in a conspicuous place on board every fully commissioned warship as an incentive to all to " beat the record." From 1907 to 1908 Vice-4d-miral Jellicoe was second in command of the Atlantic Fleet; then he returned to tlie Admiralty as a Lord Commissioner and Controller of the Navy, and during the period of this appointment he had a great deal to do with the construction of the superDreadnoughts which are now tho admiration of the world. He was i.ppointed to the command of the Atlantic Fleet in 1910, with- the acting rank of Vice-Admiral, to which grade he waa promoted a year later. His apB ointment to the command of tho ome Fleet came at the end of 1911. On the occasion of the review of the Home Fleet in the Solent by the late King Edward in 1907, Admiral Jellicoe was created K.C.V.0., and he was advanced to K.C.B. in 1911.