British Admirals of the Fleet

by T A Heathcote

  After returning home Le Fanu served from 1946 to 1949 on the experimental staff at Excellent and during 1948 was commander of the cruiser Superb. He was promoted to captain on 30 June 1949 and was appointed a Naval Assistant at the Admiralty, where his old chief in the Home Fleet, Lord Fraser of North Cape [95], was First Sea Lord. From October 1951 to May 1952 he commanded the frigate Relentless as Captain (F) of the Third Training Squadron, based at Londonderry, specializing in antisubmarine warfare. He returned to the Admiralty in 1952 to the department of the Chief Scientist, to examine the naval consequences of the emergence of nuclear weapons. From there he spent most of 1953 at the Imperial Defence College, before commanding the boys’ training establishment Ganges at Harwich from December 1954 to 1957. He was then appointed flag captain to the Flag Officer, Aircraft Carriers, in the aircraft carrier Eagle, from where he was promoted to rear-admiral on 7 July 1958.

  Le Fanu became Director-General of the Weapons Department at the Admiralty in July 1958. He served as second-in-command, Far East station, with his flag in the aircraft carrier Hermes from July 1960 to 1961, when he was appointed Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy, with promotion to vice-admiral on 25 October 1961. As the member responsible for shipbuilding and design, he endorsed a new type of general-purpose frigate, the highly successful Leander class. He was awarded the KCB in 1963. On leaving the Admiralty Board of the Navy Department (as the Board of Admiralty had become in 1964), Sir Michael Le Fanu was promoted to admiral on 29 September 1965 and appointed Joint Service C-in-C, Middle East, based at Aden, in December 1965. In February 1966 the Labour government of the day, led by Harold Wilson, decided to withdraw British forces from the area east of Suez. Aden itself was the scene of increasingly violent nationalist demands for independence and was evacuated by the British under Le Fanu’s command on 26 November 1967.

  Le Fanu returned to the Admiralty Board as First Sea Lord in August 1968. In response to a worsening economic situation, Denis Healey, the Secretary of State for Defence, brought forward to 1971–72 the dates of closing the Far East station and scrapping the remaining aircraft carriers. Le Fanu was therefore faced with the task of reshaping the Navy as a force intended to operate primarily in an anti-submarine role in the North Atlantic. He did much to keep up the morale of his Service in a period of disillusion and diminishing strength, and toured extensively, including a visit to ships exercising off Malaysia. A flamboyant and extrovert character, he mixed freely and informally with all ranks and became one of the best-loved First Sea Lords of his time. Despite the opinion of the Minister for the Navy, David Owen, that the future of the Navy lay under the water, he laid the foundations of a fleet that, although including nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, would have a mix of escort vessels, amphibious warfare ships and light carriers with anti-submarine helicopters and Sea Harrier fighters to counter Soviet long-range maritime aircraft. A man of ready wit, who delighted in word-play, he dubbed himself “Dry Ginger” after presiding over the abolition of the Navy’s time-honoured daily rum issue. When it became the Navy’s turn to fill the office of Chief of Defence Staff in October 1970, Le Fanu was nominated, but he was already suffering from leukaemia and being given frequent blood transfusions. He retired on medical grounds with promotion to admiral of the fleet on 3 July 1970 and died in London on 28 November 1970.

  LEWIN

  Sir TERENCE THORNTON, Baron Lewin, KG, GCB, LVO,

  DSC (1920–1999) [110]

  Terry Lewin, the younger son in a family of two children of an executive officer in the Office of Works, was born at Dover, Kent, on 19 November 1920 and was educated at The Judd School, Tonbridge. He joined the Navy in January 1939 by the recently enlarged Special Entry scheme and, after completing his initial cadet course in the training cruiser Frobisher, went to sea in May 1939 in the training cruiser Vindictive. On the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 he was appointed a midshipman in the cruiser Belfast in the Home Fleet. After Belfast was disabled by a German mine on 21 November 1939 he was transferred to the battleship Valiant. Lewin served as a midshipman in this ship successively in the Home Fleet during the Norwegian campaign in May 1940, in Force H in the bombardment of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir (3 July 1940) and in the Mediterranean Fleet, where he came under Italian air attack. He returned home to become an acting sub-lieutenant at the beginning of his promotion courses in April 1941 and joined the destroyer Highlander on 4 October 1941. He took part in the battle of the Atlantic on convoy escort duties, but in November 1941 was sent to hospital with diphtheria. After recovering, he was appointed as gunnery control officer in the destroyer Ashanti in January 1942. Between March and June 1942 Ashanti escorted three Arctic convoys to Northern Russia. Lewin was mentioned in despatches and was later promoted to lieutenant with seniority from 1 July 1942.

  During August 1942 Ashanti took part in a major convoy action to reinforce Malta, in which Lewin was at his station in the gunnery control tower for a total of 60 hours. This operation, together with his experience in other convoys, left him with a lasting admiration of the Merchant Service. In September, again escorting Arctic convoys, Ashanti took in tow her torpedoed sister-ship Somali to which he led a boat-party in an attempt to re-establish electrical power. After working for several hours in bitterly cold water, he succeeded, but the weather deteriorated and Somali broke up and sank after a tow of 420 miles. Lewin was awarded the DSC for his part in rescuing survivors.

  In January 1943 he became first lieutenant of Ashanti, in which he took part in the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942, in further Arctic convoys in 1943, and in the seaward defence of the Allied landings in Normandy (6 June 1944). He was mentioned in despatches a second time for a night action in which his flotilla sank a German destroyer (9 June 1944) and a third time when it intercepted a German convoy off St Nazaire (5 August 1944). In February 1944 he married Jane Branch-Evans, a Leading Wren in the Women’s Royal Naval Service and the daughter of the rector of St Lawrence’s church, Sigglesthorne, East Yorkshire. They later had a family of two sons and a daughter.

  At the end of 1944, with Ashanti in refit, Lewin decided to become a gunnery specialist and in January 1945 joined the gunnery school Excellent for the Long Gunnery Course. He was appointed to the permanent staff in May 1945, shortly before the end of the war in Europe, and in April 1946 joined the light cruiser Bellona as gunnery officer. During 1947 he qualified on the Advanced Gunnery Course at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and in December 1947 returned to the permanent staff at Excellent. He was promoted to lieutenant-commander on 1 July 1949 and was appointed gunnery officer of the First Destroyer Flotilla in the Mediterranean Fleet, in the flotilla leader Chequers. Lewin returned to the staff of Excellent in January 1952, with promotion to commander on 31 December 1952. In September 1953 he was appointed to the staff of the Second Sea Lord at the Admiralty and in October 1955 was given command of the destroyer Corunna, in which he served successively in the Home and Mediterranean Fleets.

  From there Lewin became in April 1957 commander of the royal yacht Britannia, an appointment which he initially sought to decline, but from which he came to have a regard for the high standards applied in the ship. When significant reductions were made in the defence establishment in 1957 Lewin applied for voluntary redundancy, but there were more volunteers than were needed and his request was refused. He was promoted to captain on 30 June 1958, but continued to wear the rank of a commander until November 1958, when he was succeeded in Britannia and joined the Admiralty as Assistant Director in the Tactical Ship Requirements and Staff Duties Division. There he fully supported a proposal by the head of the Weapon Equipment Priority section, Captain Peter Hill-Norton [107], that this should be merged with the Tactical and Staff Duties Directorate, and became Assistant Director in the new Tactical and Weapons Policy Division when this was set up in 1960. During 1961 he attended the Imperial Defence College, London.

  In December 1961 Lewin was appointed Captain (F) o
f the Seventeenth Frigate Squadron, the Dartmouth training squadron, successively in the frigates Urchin and Tenby. He returned to the Admiralty as Director of Tactical and Weapons Policy in December 1963 and was serving there when the Admiralty became the Navy Department on the establishment of a unified Ministry of Defence in 1964. In May 1966 he was given command of the aircraft carrier Hermes. He served in the North-Western Approaches, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, before returning home in Hermes via the Cape of Good Hope in September 1967 and being promoted to rear-admiral on 7 January 1968.

  In January 1968 Lewin became Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff (Policy). His appointment coincided with the decision of the Labour Cabinet of the day that, in a worsening economic situation, British defence policy would be based exclusively on the NATO alliance and that the date of withdrawal from the Far East and de-commissioning the Navy’s aircraft carriers would be brought forward to 1971–72. In consequence, he was tasked with reducing the Navy’s training and support structure. Following his recommendations, many shore establishments, including the Royal Dockyard at Chatham and the torpedo school Vernon were eventually closed, and others, including the Admiralty itself, were subjected to reform and rationalization. He returned to sea in August 1969 as second-in-command of the Far East Fleet, with his flag in the destroyer London. During 1970 he flew his flag in the cruiser Blake and, when she broke down, in the guided missile destroyer Fife, the assault ship Fearless, the frigate Charybdis and the Royal Fleet Auxiliaries Tarbat Ness and Olmeda. He was promoted to vice-admiral on 7 October 1970.

  In January 1971 Lewin was appointed Vice-Chief of the Naval Staff. Among his achievements in this post were an agreement with the Royal Air Force on the concept of a carrier-borne version of the Harrier Vertical Take-Off and Landing aircraft (the Sea Harrier); the introduction of annual Group Deployments of five or six warships out of the NATO area, in place of the single ships permanently on station; and increased provision for the maritime defence of British oil installations in the North Sea. In 1973 he was awarded the KCB.

  Sir Terence Lewin was promoted to admiral on 1 December 1973, with appointment as C-in-C, Fleet, and NATO Allied C-in-C, Channel (CINCHAN), and Eastern Atlantic Area (CINCEASTLANT). In November 1975 he became C-in-C, Naval Home Command, responsible for the Navy’s shore-based training and support systems in the United Kingdom. As such, he pressed on with the implementation of his previous recommendations for closures and rationalization. He also implemented proposals for a Naval Social Service, with trained social workers to replace the long-established Naval Family Welfare organization. With the abolition of the post of Admiral Commanding Reserves, Lewin became responsible for the Royal Naval Reserve, the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service and the Sea Cadet Corps. In a characteristic morale-boosting gesture, he wrote to the commanding officer of every Reserve, Auxiliary and Sea Cadet unit and to the chairmen of the Sea Cadet unit management committees, and took care to attend as many of their activities as he could. On his last day in this appointment he presented his wife with her medals for war service in the WRNS.

  Lewin was appointed First Sea Lord in March 1977. He himself described his time in this office as “the dullest I ever had in the Navy”. His problems included an exodus of trained personnel following the imposition of pay restraint on public sector employees, reflected in civil society by the “Winter of Discontent” that led to the fall of James Callaghan’s Labour administration in May 1979. The new Conservative Cabinet, led by Margaret Thatcher, began by improving the pay of the Armed Services, but soon called for savings in other areas. Lewin became Chief of the Defence Staff in September 1979. He continued to argue that the British nuclear deterrent should be provided by the Navy, with Trident ballistic missiles carried in submarines. John Nott, appointed Secretary of State for Defence in January 1981, agreed, but ruled that the cost was to be borne exclusively by the Navy. This decision was followed by sweeping naval reductions ordered in June 1981 in response to Prime Ministerial demands for “value for money”. Lewin’s acceptance of these made him for a time unpopular with some in his own Service, though he felt that his duty as CDS required him to remain impartial. He also felt that he lacked the resources to provide the Cabinet with the best professional advice and introduced a new system whereby the CDS became the principal military adviser to the Government, rather than simply the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, bound to represent their collective view.

  At the end of March 1982, when there were indications that Argentina might take action against British possessions in the South Atlantic, Lewin was on an official visit to New Zealand. Opinion in Whitehall was that to cut short his visit would be deemed a provocative act, so that it was only after Argentine forces landed in the Falkland Islands on 1–2 April 1982 that he began his return. He arrived home to find that the Chief of the Naval Staff, Sir Henry Leach [111], had assured the Prime Minister that the islands could be retaken and had already instructed the C-in-C, Fleet, Sir John Fieldhouse [112], to assemble a task force for this purpose. During the campaign Lewin played an important part in the War Cabinet, gaining the confidence of the Prime Minister and giving her his resolute support when losses began to be suffered. Followed the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982, he was granted a life peerage as Baron Lewin, of Greenwich. Lord Lewin left office in October 1982. In April 1983 he was made a Knight of the Garter, the first officer to be so decorated solely for naval services since Lord Howe [9]. He retired to Ufford, Suffolk, and took part in many naval, charitable and historical activities and spoke widely on naval matters. He died at Ufford on 23 January 1999.

  LYONS

  Sir ALGERNON McLENNAN, GCB (1833–1908) [51]

  Algernon Lyons, the second son of an officer in the East India Company’s service, was born in western India at Bombay (Mumbai) on 30 August 1833 and went to school at Twickenham before entering the Navy in 1847. He was appointed to the frigate Cambrian in which he served on the East Indies and China station until late in 1850. His uncle, Sir Edmund (later Lord) Lyons, a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, became second-in-command of the Mediterranean Fleet in 1853 and Algernon Lyons then joined his flagship, the 2nd-rate Albion. He was promoted to mate in October 1853 and became lieutenant in the paddle frigate Firebrand on 28 June 1854, in which he served at the beginning of the Crimean War in the blockade of the Russian-held Danube estuary. On 8 July 1854, when a landing party entered the river to destroy Russian signal stations, he took command of Firebrand’s boats after her commanding officer, Captain Hyde Parker, was killed.

  Lyons was mentioned in despatches and given command of Firebrand, in which he served at the bombardment of Sevastopol on 17 October 1854, towing Albion into action and then out again after she was set on fire by Russian coastal artillery. In December 1854, when Sir Edmund Lyons became C-in-C of the Mediterranean Fleet, he appointed his nephew as his flag lieutenant in the flagship, the 1st-rate Royal Albert. During October 1855 Lyons took part in the operations at Kerch in the eastern Crimea in May 1855, and Kinburn (Pokrovskiy), guarding the strategically important Russian port of Ochakov in the Dnepr estuary (Dneprovskiy Liman). He remained his uncle’s flag lieutenant after the war ended in 1856 and was made a commander by Sir Edmund Lyons on 9 August 1858, in one of the “haul-down promotions” which, at that period, C-in-C’s were authorized to make on completion of their appointment. Lyons served on the North America station from 1861 to 1862 in command of the sloop Racer. This included the opening period of the American Civil War, with Anglo-American relations strained by British merchantmen claiming the protection of the Royal Navy while they ran the United States Navy’s blockade of Confederate ports. He was promoted to captain on 1 December 1862, and went onto half-pay until appointed to the corvette Charybdis on the Pacific station, where he served from January 1867 to 1871. In October 1872 he became captain of the frigate Immortalité and second-in-command of a detached squadron. Between 1875 and 1877 he was commodore and senior officer at Jamaica. In April 1878 Lyons was appointed
to the armoured turret ship Monarch in the Mediterranean and was deployed with the fleet to Constantinople (Istanbul) when there was a risk of war with Russia over the Turkish question. He left his ship on promotion to rear-admiral on 26 September 1878. In 1879 he married Louisa, daughter and heiress of Thomas Penrice, Esquire, of Kilvrough Park, Glamorganshire, with whom he later had two sons and two daughters.

  From December 1881 until his promotion to vice-admiral on 27 October 1884 Lyons was C-in-C, Pacific, with his flag in the armoured ship Swiftsure. He was C-in-C, North America and West Indies, with his flag in the armoured ship Bellerophon, from September 1886 until promoted to admiral on 15 December 1888. He was awarded the KCB in 1889. Sir Algernon Lyons was C-in-C, Plymouth, from June 1893 to 23 August 1897, when he became an admiral of the fleet. He retired on 30 August 1903 and died at his home in Glamorganshire on 9 February 1908.