James Fownes Somerville

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James Somerville (right) with Winston Churchill and Archibald Wavell , 1943

Sir James Fownes Somerville GCB GBE DSO (born July 17, 1882 in Weybridge , Surrey , † March 19, 1949 in Dinder , Somerset ) was a famous British naval admiral during the Second World War .

Life

Somerville began his officer career in 1897 at the Royal Navy Naval College at Dartmouth on HMS Britannia . His classmate was Andrew Browne Cunningham . In 1898 he was assigned to the HMS Magnificent as a cadet . He then served on various ships in the Mediterranean , the Pacific and the China Sea . After his promotion to lieutenant in 1904 he was transferred to the HMS Vernon weapons school , where he trained as a torpedo specialist in 1907completed. At this time he was also interested in the new technology of wireless telegraphy , after which he served as a radio officer on various ships.

In 1913 Somerville married Mary Kerr Main, with whom he had a son and a daughter.

In 1921 he was promoted to sea captain. Between 1923 and 1929, he commanded the battleships HMS Benbow , HMS Barham and HMS Warspite . From 1925 to 1927 Somerville was director of the Admiralty's communications department . In 1931 he carried out the investigations into the Invergordon Mutiny with Captain John Tovey .

After taking command of the cruiser HMS Norfolk , Somerville was promoted to Rear Admiral of the Mediterranean Fleet in 1935 . During the Spanish Civil War he served as a British liaison officer off the Spanish coast. He then went to Asia as Commander in Chief of the East Indies Station . Shortly afterwards, however, he was advised to quit work due to illness, as it was wrongly assumed that he had tuberculosis .

During the Second World War, Somerville initially worked as a radio commentator before the Admiralty asked him to monitor the progress of installing radars on British ships. As a volunteer he supported Admiral Bertram Ramsay in evacuating the troops from Dunkirk in May and June 1940. At the end of the same year, the Admiralty gave him command of Force H in Gibraltar , whose first assignment was to destroy the Vichy-French fleet at Mers- el-Kébir in Algeria ( Operation Catapult ). In addition, the squadron served as escort for convoys in the Atlantic and to Malta . Probably the most spectacular mission was the pursuit and sinking of the Bismarck in May 1941.

From 1942 to 1944 Somerville served as commander in chief of the Eastern Fleet and was promoted to admiral . After initially having his headquarters in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) , he withdrew his units to East Africa after the Japanese advance in April 1942. It was only in 1944 that he was able to go on the offensive again with his associations after his fleet had been significantly strengthened. From 1944 to 1945 he led the British delegation to the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington.

After the war ended, Somerville retired to his family home in Dinder, Somerset, where his wife died shortly afterwards. He himself died on March 19, 1949.

literature

  • Captain Donald Macintyre: Fighting Admiral - The life of Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Somerville, GCB, GBE, DSO - London: Evans Brothers, 1961
  • Michael Simpson and John Somerville (Eds.): The Somerville Papers: Selections from the Private and Official Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Somerville, GCB, GBE, DSO - London: Navy Records Society, 1996 - ISBN 1-85928-207 -5 (John Somerville is Admiral Somerville's son)

Web links

Commons : James Fownes Somerville  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files