British Admirals of the Fleet

by T A Heathcote

  During 1800 Pole served as Governor of Newfoundland, until his promotion to vice-admiral of the Blue on 1 January 1801. In June 1801 he succeeded Nelson in command of the Baltic fleet, with his flag in the 2nd-rate St George. On the re-establishment of friendly relations with Russia he brought the fleet home in July 1801 and was praised for his seamanship in exiting the Baltic through the Great Belt against a contrary wind. He was created a baronet in September 1801. After the Treaty of Amiens (27 March 1802) ended the war with revolutionary France Sir Charles Pole entered Parliament and sat as Member for Newark from 1802 to 1806 and Plymouth from 1806 to 1818. The war was renewed in May 1803 and Pole became an admiral of the Blue on 9 November 1805. Between February and October 1806 he was a lord commissioner of the Admiralty in the Board headed by Viscount Howick (later Earl Grey) during the “Ministry of all the Talents”. He became admiral of the White on 31 July 1810 and admiral of the Red on 4 June 1814, but the war ended in 1815 without him again going to sea. He was made an admiral of the fleet on 22 July 1830, one of the three officers promoted to that rank to mark the accession of William IV [11]. He died at Denham Abbey on 6 September 1830. He had two daughters, but no male heir, and his baronetcy became extinct.

  POLLOCK

  Sir MICHAEL PATRICK, GCB, LVO, DSC (1916-) [108]

  Michael Pollock, born on 19 October 1916, joined the Navy in May 1930 as a cadet in the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. In January 1934 he joined the training cruiser Frobisher and became a midshipman on 1 September 1934, when he was appointed to the battleship Nelson, flagship of the Home Fleet. Between September 1935 and January 1936 he served in the destroyer Express in the Mediterranean, during a period when there was a threat of war between the United Kingdom and Italy following the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Pollock then returned to Nelson until the beginning of his promotion courses as an acting sub-lieutenant in January 1936. He was promoted to sub-lieutenant on 1 May 1937 and joined the cruiser York, flagship of the America and West Indies station, at Bermuda in October 1937. After promotion to lieutenant on 1 August 1938 he returned home and was appointed to the battleship Warspite, flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet, at Malta in June 1939. Soon after the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 he was appointed first lieutenant of the destroyer Vanessa in which he served from October 1939 in Atlantic and Channel convoys and patrols off the east coast of Britain, with the threat of invasion after the German occupation of France and the Low Countries in May and June 1940. Vanessa was disabled by German air attack in July 1940. In 1940 Pollock married Margaret Steacy, of Bermuda, with whom he later had two sons and a daughter. He joined the gunnery school Excellent in January 1941 where he qualified as a gunnery officer before joining the junior instructional staff there. He was appointed in March 1942 to the cruiser Arethusa and served first in the North Atlantic and then in the Mediterranean, based at Alexandria, from where he took part in the bombardment of Rhodes and escorted convoys to the besieged island of Malta. On 18 November 1942, on convoy escort duty, Arethusa was torpedoed by enemy aircraft and set on fire. Badly damaged, with the loss of 155 out of her complement of 500, she then survived a stern tow in a rising gale to reach Alexandria three days later. The ship was sent to refit in Charleston, South Carolina, from where Pollock returned to Excellent in July 1943. He was appointed gunnery officer of the cruiser Norfolk in the Home Fleet in October 1943 and took part in North Atlantic and Arctic convoys and the sinking of the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst (27 December 1943). In this operation Norfolk was hit by Scharnhorst’s 11-in guns, and had one turret and most of her radars put out of action. She returned to Newcastle-upon-Tyne for extensive repairs and modernization, with Pollock, who was awarded the DSC, left in the ship in charge of the Seaman aspect of the refit, and in command for part of the time. Arethusa rejoined the fleet late in 1944 and subsequently took part in convoy actions and raids on enemy shipping off the Norwegian coast. Pollock was promoted to acting lieutenant-commander on 1 May 1945 and sailed with his ship to join the British Pacific Fleet. After the end of hostilities with Japan in August 1945 and minor operations against nationalist insurgents in Malaya and Java, he returned home by troopship in December 1945, having been mentioned in despatches three times in the course of the war.

  Pollock returned to Excellent in January 1946 as an assistant instructor on the Long Gunnery Course, with his promotion to lieutenant-commander confirmed on 1 June 1946. In August 1947 he became an application officer at the Admiralty Signals Research Establishment, Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire, before returning to Excellent where he was between May and October 1949 in charge of the Fire Control section. In October 1949 he joined the cruiser Glasgow, flagship of the America and West Indies station, as fleet gunnery officer to the C-in-C. He was promoted to commander on 30 June 1950 and was appointed in November 1950 to be Commander (G) at the Chatham gunnery school. In September 1952 he became commander of the Junior Officers’ War Course at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. Pollock’s first wife had died in 1951 and in 1954 he married Mrs Majory Helen Reece, acquiring with her a stepdaughter. He was appointed commander of the cruiser Newcastle, flagship of the Far East station in June 1954. This ship served off the coast of Korea at the end of the Korean War and in 1955 took part in the Malayan insurgency campaign, giving gunfire support to the ground forces.

  Pollock was promoted to captain on 30 June 1955 and from January 1956 to January 1957 was Assistant Director of Plans (Warfare) at the Admiralty. In February 1958 he became Captain (D) at Portsmouth, commanding the destroyer Vigo. He was next appointed Director, Surface Weapons, in the Admiralty’s outstation at Bath, Somerset, in January 1960. In October 1962 he was given command of the cruiser Blake and was sent on a tactical course in that capacity, but in December 1962 his appointment was changed to command of the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, which from time to time was flagship of the Flag Officer, Aircraft Carriers. Pollock commanded this ship during 1963 on the Far East station and off the coasts of East Africa and the Middle East until returning home in January 1964. Between April 1964 and April 1966 he served in the Navy Department of the Ministry of Defence (as the Admiralty became in 1964) as Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff, with promotion to rear-admiral on 7 July 1964. Pollock then became Flag Officer second-in-command of the Home Fleet (renamed the Western Fleet on the demise of the Mediterranean Fleet in 1967), with his flag in the cruiser Tiger. He was promoted to vice-admiral on 26 December 1967, when he was appointed Flag Officer, Submarines, and NATO Allied Commander (Submarines), Eastern Atlantic Area (COMSUBEASTLANT), at the submarine base Dolphin, Gosport. He was awarded the KCB in 1968.

  In January 1970 Sir Michael Pollock became Controller of the Navy, with promotion to admiral on 21 April 1970. From there in March 1971 he was appointed First Sea Lord, where he remained until leaving office and becoming an admiral of the fleet on 1 March 1974. Undertaking many charitable and civic activities, he settled at his home in Churchstoke, Montgomery, Powys.

  POUND

  Sir ALFRED DUDLEY PICKMAN ROGERS, GCB, OM,

  GCVO (1877–1943) [89]

  Dudley Pound was born at Wraxall, near Ventnor, Isle of Wight, on 29 August 1877. His father, a country gentleman, played little part in public affairs, though he spent a year in the Colonial Service in British Guiana (Guyana), and on returning home via the United States met his future wife, Elizabeth Pickman Rogers, who came from a family of wealthy merchants in Salem, Massachusetts. A woman of strong will, eccentric behaviour and extravagant habits, she eventually separated from her husband, who settled at Buckfastleigh, Devon, where Pound grew up. On 15 January 1891 he joined the training ship Britannia at Dartmouth, where he passed in first in the order of merit and retained that position on passing out in December 1892. On 5 January 1893 he was appointed midshipman in the battleship Royal Sovereign, flagship of the Channel Squadron, from which he was transferred in May 1894 to the cruiser Undaunted and sailed for the China station. After returning home in the full-rigged cruiser Le
ander, he joined her sister ship, the cruiser Calypso, in the Training Squadron.

  Pound was promoted to acting sub-lieutenant on 29 August 1896, at the beginning of his promotion courses, and joined the destroyer Opossum in October 1897. He joined the battleship Magnificent, flagship of the second-in-command of the Channel Squadron, in January 1898, in which he was promoted to lieutenant on 29 August 1898. He was appointed flag lieutenant and, despite frequently being placed under arrest by his irascible admiral (on one occasion twelve times while Magnificent sailed the three miles between the Hamoaze and Plymouth Sound), received a favourable report. In September 1899 he joined the torpedo school Vernon from which, after qualifying in December 1901, he was appointed as torpedo lieutenant to the cruiser Grafton, flagship on the Pacific station.

  Pound returned home to serve as torpedo lieutenant in the battleship King Edward VII, flagship of the Atlantic Fleet, in January 1905 to March 1907. Between then and October 1908 he was torpedo lieutenant in the battleship Queen in the Mediterranean Fleet. There he married Betty, the daughter of an old Ventnor neighbour, Dr John Whitehead. They later had a family of two sons and a daughter. Pound joined the staff of the Ordnance Department at the Admiralty in January 1909. In May 1911 he became commander of the battleship Superb in the Home Fleet. There he gained the medal of the Royal Humane Society for leading the attempted rescue of four men, three of whom subsequently died, overcome by foul air in the ship’s potato hold, in June 1911. Early in 1913 he joined the staff of the Naval War College, Portsmouth, from which he was appointed commander of the battleship St Vincent in the Home Fleet in April 1914.

  Following the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 Pound served in St Vincent in the Grand Fleet until promoted to captain on 31 December 1914. He was then appointed additional Naval Assistant to Lord Fisher [58], who had returned to office as First Sea Lord in the Board of Admiralty headed by Winston Churchill. Pound went back to the Grand Fleet in May 1915 on appointment to the battleship Colossus as flag captain to the second-in-command of the First Battle Squadron, Rear-Admiral Ernest Gaunt, his former captain in Superb. Pound served at the battle of Jutland (31 May–1 June 1916), where Colossus contributed to the sinking of the German cruiser Wiesbaden and destroyer V48 and sustained several casualties. After the battle he was appointed to a committee to examine the use of wireless to control gunfire. In July 1917 he returned to the Admiralty as the head of a newly-formed Planning Section in the Operations Division. Shortly afterwards he became Assistant Director of its successor, the Plans Division, under Rear-Admiral Roger Keyes [80]. In January 1918, when Keyes was given command of the Dover Patrol, Pound became Director of the Operations Division (Home) and worked closely with Keyes in planning his raid on Zeebrugge (23 April 1918). After the end of the war he remained at the Admiralty until July 1919.

  Between October 1920 and June 1923 Pound was captain of the battle-cruiser Repulse in the Atlantic Fleet. He then became Director of Plans at the Admiralty and attended the final session of the Lausanne conference, convened to settle outstanding international differences with Turkey. During 1924 he attended the League of Nations meeting at Geneva, where a proposed Protocol to promote peaceful settlement of international disputes by negotiation, mutual support and disarmament was causing anxiety at the Admiralty. With the termination of the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902, he urged the building of a naval base at Singapore. From April 1925 to February 1926 Pound served as chief of staff to Keyes as C-in-C, Mediterranean Fleet, in the battleship Warspite, with promotion to commodore on 2 July 1925 and rear-admiral on 1 March 1926. In April 1926 he became Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff at the Admiralty. During the abortive Geneva Naval Conference Pound took the place of the Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick Field [81], when the latter became ill in July 1927.

  In May 1929, Pound was given command of the Battle-cruiser Squadron, with his flag in the battle-cruiser Renown, and became second-in-command of the Atlantic Fleet. He implemented a policy of realistic training, with special emphasis on night exercises, despite the risk of collision between darkened ships. He was promoted to vice-admiral on 15 May 1931 and handed over command of his squadron to his old friend Rear-Admiral Wilfred Tomkinson in May 1931. After a period on half-pay he was appointed Second Sea Lord in August 1932, as part of a general reconstruction of the Board of Admiralty in the aftermath of the mutiny of the Atlantic Fleet at Invergordon. When Tomkinson (who had been in temporary command of the fleet at the time of the mutiny) was made the scapegoat, he appealed to Pound, as the Sea Lord responsible for personnel matters, but Pound refused to support him. After being awarded the KCB in 1934 Sir Dudley Pound was promoted to admiral on 16 October 1935 and went to succeed Admiral Sir William Fisher as C-in-C, Mediterranean Fleet. A sudden increase in international tension following Italy’s invasion of Abyssinian (Ethiopia) led to the decision that Fisher should remain in post until the crisis was resolved. Pound thereupon volunteered to act as his chief of staff until eventually succeeding him in March 1936.

  Pound trained his fleet hard for likely operations against the Italian Navy and continued his emphasis on night exercises. During the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39 he was involved in the protection of British shipping off the Spanish coast and in the joint British, French and Italian patrols against “pirate” (actually Italian) submarines that attacked merchantmen carrying supplies for the Spanish republican government. He gained a reputation as an exacting, even harsh, disciplinarian, ready to criticize officers and ratings alike if they failed to reach the standards he required, while at the same time keeping in his own hands decisions that could have been delegated to a lower level. With his flag at various times in the battleships Queen Elizabeth, Barham and Warspite, and the cruiser Galatea, he remained in command as the international situation grew worse. After the Munich crisis of 1938, he was told that his tenure would be extended until April 1940, but in June 1939 he was recalled to succeed the ailing Sir Roger Backhouse [88] as First Sea Lord in the Board headed by Lord Stanhope in Chamberlain’s Cabinet. He was promoted to admiral of the fleet on 31 July 1939.

  On the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Stanhope was succeeded by Winston Churchill, under whom Pound had served at the Admiralty in 1915. The signal “Winston’s back”, has been attributed to Pound, with the suggestion that he intended it as much as a caution as a cause for celebration. His approach towards the naval strategies advanced by Churchill, either as First Lord or, after May 1940, Prime Minister, was to give them fair consideration and offer a reasoned response, so that he became “Churchill’s anchor”. Nevertheless, he was seen by some as allowing Churchill to interfere in the details of operational matters and as attempting himself to exercise too close a control over ships at sea. He was hampered by Churchill’s habit of giving senior posts to his personal favourites, such as the Earl of Cork and Orrery [87] as Flag Officer, Narvik, in April 1940; Keyes as Chief of Combined Operations in July 1940 and Lord Louis Mountbatten [102] as Keyes’s successor in 1941.

  Pound was criticized by Cork for the Admiralty’s part in the conduct of the Norwegian campaign, in which the Navy suffered heavy losses. Ever mindful of the need for convoy escorts in the battle of the Atlantic, he was reluctant to lose more destroyers in the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk (26 May–4 June 1940), but was persuaded by Vice-Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Flag Officer, Dover, to accept the risks. He gave full support to the attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir on 3 July 1940, to ensure that its ships did not fall into German hands, and later dismissed Admiral Sir Dudley North, Flag Officer, Gibraltar, for failing to take action to prevent the passage of a French squadron into the Atlantic on 11 September 1940. At the end of 1940 he despatched Lord Cork to Gibraltar to enquire into the conduct of Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville [93], whom Churchill had wished to court-martial for failing to pursue a defeated Italian fleet. By the convention of each Service holding this post in turn, Pound became cha
irman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in the summer of 1941. As Chief of the Naval Staff, he was responsible for the strategic deployment of units involved in the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck on 27 May 1941. Later he was criticized for having agreed, under pressure from Churchill, to send the battleship Prince of Wales and the battle-cruiser Repulse, without air cover, to the Far East, where they were sunk off Malaya on 10 December 1941. He was also blamed for failing to prevent the passage of the German battle-cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau through the Channel in February 1942 and for personally ordering the Arctic convoy PQ17 to scatter in the face of a threat from German surface raiders in July 1942. In the Chiefs of Staff committee he waged a long campaign against the Royal Air Force giving priority to the strategic bomber offensive at the expense of Coastal Command, and argued that to lose the battle of the Atlantic would be to lose the war.