David Loram

Sir David Anning Loram (born July 24, 1924 in London - † June 30, 2011 ) was a British Vice Admiral in the Royal Navy who fired the torpedo in 1942 that sank the light cruiser Edinburgh loaded with five tons of gold from the Soviet Union .

Life

Sinking of the Edinburgh

Loram, the son of a tea merchant in Ceylon , began training at the Britannia Royal Navy College in Dartmouth after finishing school , where he was Chief Cadet Captain. Subsequently, after 1941, he was initially on escort trips in the Arctic Ocean on board the Sheffield . This use was interrupted in September 1941 when it was used on an escort trip to Malta .

Loram was then part of the crew of the destroyer Foresight , which accompanied the Edinburgh on April 30, 1942 , a ship loaded with gold bars from the Soviet Union to pay for US weapons. After the Edinburgh was hit by two enemy torpedoes, the Foresight and her sister ship Forester were supposed to tow them back to Murmansk . Shortly afterwards, however, the two destroyers received the order to return to their submarine patrols and to cut the tow ropes. On the morning of May 2, 1942 three destroyers attacked the Navy , the Edinburgh , which it suffered list and was unable to defend himself.

The destroyers Foresight and Forester , which were still in the vicinity , then returned, with Foresight sunk a German destroyer. The other two German destroyers then fled. The crew of the Edinburgh , which had suffered even more damage, was evacuated and then sunk to prevent German ships from confiscating the gold. The only remaining torpedo of the British destroyers was in the guns over which Loram was in command, whereby he had to de-ice the muzzle before he could fire the torpedo. Loram had the presence of mind and photographed both the launch and the moment of the hit in the Edinburgh .

In November 1942 he took part in Operation Torch , the Allied landing in French North Africa , but then resumed his service on board the Sheffield in the Arctic Ocean. His experiences there during more than a dozen convoy trips were marked by heavy rain and snowfall with hardly any visibility, ice formations on the upper parts of the ship, the gloom of long winter days, the impossibility to wash, sleep or keep warm, as well as the stale air inside the ship , vomiting and the constant alternation of waking and resting every four hours. Later he was on board the destroyer Zealous and as a second lieutenant in the gun turret of the battleship Anson .

Promotion to Vice Admiral

After the Second World War , he was initially aide-de-camp of Lieutenant General Sir Bernard Freyberg , the Governor General of New Zealand . After his return to Great Britain in 1948 he was trained as a signal officer and then found use on the destroyer Checkers , whose deputy in command was Lieutenant at Sea Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh , who had married the future Queen Elizabeth II in 1947 . During this time he accompanied Prince Philip on an unofficial visit to Syria on a drive from Latakia to Damascus .

This personal relationship contributed to Loram's career in the Royal Household, where he was Chamberlain to the Queen from 1954 to 1956 . During this time he accompanied the royal family on the maiden voyage of the royal yacht Britannia as well as on state visits to Norway and Sweden . He then became the commander of the frigate Loch Fada in 1957 , on which he led patrols against piracy in the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf . He then found from 1958 to 1960 use in the management staff of the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC) in Watchfield, before he was from 1961 to 1962 deputy in command of the light cruiser Belfast , the flagship of the Eastern Fleet .

After his promotion to sea captain , he worked for two years as a naval attaché at the embassy in Paris . A debacle for which he was responsible occurred during his two years in command of the frigate Arethusa : Two grenades were fired, which instead of a buoy struck Lyme Bay in the Dorset hinterland . Between 1971 and 1973 he was in command of the destroyer Antrim and accompanied Princess Anne with her on a state visit to Ethiopia in July 1972 on the occasion of the eightieth birthday of Emperor Haile Selassie .

Afterwards he was first commander of the British armed forces in Malta and then from 1975 to 1977 commander of the Joint Services Command and Staff College. Most recently, in 1977, he succeeded James Jungius as Vice Admiral as Deputy Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces in the Atlantic (SACLANT). In this capacity he was knighted as Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1979 and from then on bore the name siren. In 1980 he was adopted into retirement and replaced by Vice Admiral Cameron Rusby .

Most recently Sir David Loram also became Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1994 .

Web links

• THE TELEGRAPH: Vice-Admiral Sir David Loram (August 11, 2011)
• Entry (britishmilitariaforums.yuku.com)