Thomas - Battles and Honours of the Royal Navy

BATTLES AND HONOURS
OF THE
ROYAL NAVY

DAVID A. THOMAS has also written:

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Juvenile

HOW SHIPS ARE MADE

BATTLES AND HONOURS
OF THE
ROYAL NAVY

by

DAVID A. THOMAS

First published in Great Britain 1998 by
LEO COOPER
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley, S. Yorkshire S70 2AS

ISBN 085052 623 X

Copyright David A. Thomas 1998

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

Typeset in 10.5/13.5pt Sabon by
Phoenix Typesetting, Ilkley, West Yorkshire.
Printed in England by Redwood Books Ltd. Trowbridge, Wilts.

It was 1660, the year of the restoration of King Charles II to the throne, which finds most support from claimants for the Navys founding year, if only because it was Charles who granted the Royal prefix in that year.

It may strike a discordant note to the purists, therefore, to read here about battles which pre-date this datum point of 1660, by as much as seventy-two years in the case of the Armada (1588). But the Armada, as the Admiralty Fleet Order puts it with inconsistency but good sense, and with studied understatement, is in all respects worthy of inclusion.

The Admiralty goes further, and this book is content to follow in its wake, by including Cadiz (1596), Kentish Knock (1652) and Santa Cruz (1657). We read of Drake, of Howard and of Frobisher, but none of these, neither the battles nor their commanders, represented a Navy that was Royal or even British simply English.

Much of the information presented here first appeared in A Companion to the Royal Navy, a comprehensive volume published by Harrap in 1988. The opportunity has been taken to thoroughly revise and up-date every entry relating to battles and honours of the Royal Navy.

Several other points call for comment in order to clarify what at first glance appear to be anomalies, omissions or difficulties.

The first difficulty to resolve is the definition of a battle when applied to the Royal Navy. Few would question the general guiding principle of including in such a compilation a battle fought at sea between a fleet or squadron and an enemy. This seems perfectly sensible and acceptable at first sight, but if this definition is observed strictly it eliminates landing assaults such as combined operations, single or very-few-ship actions, evacuations and air-sea engagements, and patently this is not good enough. How then can this problem be resolved?

I confess to some inconsistency here and make no excuses for introducing into this collection of battles a category which the Admiralty disallows, namely battles which have not been awarded an honour. For example, no compilation such as this could excuse omitting the clash of Force Z and squadrons of Japanese aircraft in the South China Sea when the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse were sunk in December, 1941, simply because no enemy ships were engaged.

The engagement was a benchmark in naval history: two capital ships, apparently efficiently worked up, adequately armed, with plenty of sea room, with well-trained crews and good visibility, succumbed to the assault.

The operation a year earlier by aircraft squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm on the Italian battle fleet at Taranto was against capital ships secured safely but slumbrous in a well-defended port.

The Force Z clash is not considered worthy of the Admiralty award of a battle honour, while, by contrast, the successful Fleet Air Arm attack at Taranto is justly recognized by an honour. Both engagements are included.

For equally compelling reasons no true list of battles can exclude a paragraph or two on the evacuations from Dunkirk (1940) and Crete (1941), although the principal enemy forces were German aircraft.

Other examples of such anomalies occur quite frequently and when the Admiralty battle honours list is challenged other difficulties loom. Some explanations are still wanting where the Admiralty record itself shows some inconsistencies, such as Atlantic Conveyor in the Falklands in 1982; and 899 Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm probably ought not to have Aegean 1943; and 801 Squadron surely deserves a North Africa honour. However, these anomalies have been allowed to stand until formally corrected.

Convoy battles across the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean and to and from Russia call for special comment. The Battle of the Atlantic (19391945) deserves a full and detailed classification in its own right. Winston Churchill described the battle as a war of groping and drowning, of ambuscade and stratagem, of science and seamanship. On another occasion he wrote: The only thing that really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.

It is evident that this is not the place for the full classification: hundreds of convoys were escorted and operated during the Second World War, with many scores of them resulting in significant engagements on a scale transcending by far many of the honour-worthy battles of the past. Yet these individual convoy battles go unrecognized; they are simply classified by the all-embracing honour Malta Convoys 19412, or Arctic 19415, or Atlantic 193945.

As a compromise, to give a fairer balance to the entries and to bring home the anguish, violence and horror of these clashes a few convoy battles from the Malta, Russian and Atlantic battle fronts have been selected for inclusion.

Other problems arise. British submarine activity is only honoured by campaign awards and this seems to me inadequate recognition when some patrols equated to battles. To redress the balance, partially at least, I have described two patrols one from each World War. For WWI I have chosen Commander Martin Nasmiths exciting and extraordinary foray into the Sea of Marmara in HM Submarine E 11 (May June, 1915) and for WWII (May, 1941) Lieutenant-Commander David Wanklyns gallant exploits in Upholder in the Mediterranean.

Other limitations imposed by the Admiralty result in the exclusion of some single-ship actions, yet these were the dominant feature of the Naval War of 1812 against America. So one such battle has been selected for inclusion here the celebrated Chesapeake v Shannon. Purists may cavil at the biased choice of this engagement, the first British success after a series of five incredible American single-ship successes. It earns inclusion because it has just about all the qualities needed in fighting at sea during the days of sail.

* * *

The document which helps set out the criteria and lists the awards of battle honours is Admiralty Fleet Order (AFO) 2565/54 Issue 98/54 dated 1 October, 1954, and it is entitled