Francis Cromie
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Francis Newton Allen Cromie , CB , DSO , (born January 30, 1882 in Duncannon / Ireland; † August 31, 1918 in Petrograd ) was a British submarine commander in World War I and a diplomat.
Life
He was born in Ireland to an officer of the Hampshire Regiment who was later Consul General in Dakar, and to a mother the daughter of the Pembrokeshire Police Commissioner . Cromie entered the Royal Navy at the age of 16 and initially completed a career as a sergeant. Cromie received his baptism of fire during the Boxer Rebellion , in which he participated as a midshipman with the Navy Landing Brigade. He was awarded the Royal Navy China Medal for his work. His leadership qualities were also noticed here. He was mentioned with praise and received the Peking clasp as a further award. He became one of the first volunteers of the newly trained submarine weapon in 1903. In 1910 he was promoted to commander of the training flotilla of A-class submarines. He developed fundamental strategies and tactics that would accompany the use of British submarines for a long time. With the outbreak of the First World War he received his first combat command with the submarine HMS D6 . He was then transferred to the boat HMS E19 .
Commander of HMS E19
In September 1915 the submarine HMS E19 moved under the command of Cromie on the orders of the Admiralty to the Baltic Sea to reinforce the Russian Baltic Fleet in order to disrupt the hitherto relatively undisturbed traffic of German ships. On October 11, 1915, he sank five German merchant ships south of Öland within a few hours . A major success was the sinking of the German small cruiser SMS Undine on November 7th, 1915. For this success he was awarded the highest Russian order, the 4th grade of St. George . In May 1916 the Admiralty awarded him the Distinguished Service Order . In the same year he also took command of the British submarine flotilla in the Baltic . After the October Revolution and the German intervention in Finland in 1918, Cromie refused to hand over the remaining British submarines - as stipulated in the Hangö Agreement - to the Imperial Navy. He had the boats sunk off Helsingfors in April 1918.
Marine attaché in Petrograd
Towards the end of the war he was appointed to Petrograd as a naval attaché at the British embassy. Here he was immediately embroiled in post-revolutionary turmoil. He was heavily involved in white counter-revolutionary circles, which the Cheka quickly became known for. After the murder of the head of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky, on August 30, 1918, and Fanny Kaplan's assassination attempt on Lenin on the same day , the Cheka decided to arrest British spies and diplomats.
On August 31, 1918, a mob stormed the British Mission in Petrograd. Francis Cromie was trying to deny the attackers access to the embassy when he was shot from out of the crowd. He is buried in the Smolensk Cemetery in St. Petersburg. A memorial stone is located in Arkhangelsk on the Allied cemetery there (Archangel Allied Cemetery).
literature
- Roy Bainton: Honored by Strangers: The Life of Captain Francis Cromie CB DSO RN, 1882-1918. The Crowood Press, 2002. ISBN 978-1-84037-196-3 .
Web links
- Brief portrait on kampfschwimmer-vm.de
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cromie, Francis |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cromie, Francis Newton Allen (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British submarine commander in World War I and diplomat |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 30, 1882 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ireland |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 31, 1918 |
| Place of death | Petrograd |