Jeremy Black (Admiral)

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Sir John Jeremy Black GBE KCB DSO (born November 17, 1932 in Horrabridge , Devon , † November 25, 2015 in Durley , Hampshire ) was a British admiral in the Royal Navy who was in command of the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible during the Falklands War in 1982 and was most recently of 1989 to 1991 Commander in Chief of the Naval Home Command ( Naval Home Command ) in the Portsmouth Naval Base was.

Life

Military training and naval officer

Black came from families of naval officers on both his father's and mother's side. He was a son of Alan Black, who took part in the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli as an officer . He grew up in Plymouth and entered the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth in 1946 at the age of thirteen . After completing his training, he took part in the Korean War between 1950 and 1953 and during this time from 1951 to 1952 in particular in the guerrilla war on the Malay Peninsula led by the Malayan Races Liberation Army (MNLA) .

In 1958 he completed an artillery course and from 1960 to 1962 was the commanding officer of the HMS Fiskerton minesweeper stationed in Singapore . In December 1962, Black played a key role in the so-called Limbang Raid when he and a company of the Royal Marines took the British resident in Sarawak , his wife and twelve other hostages from the hands of a group of secessionists from the Tentara Nasional Kalimantan Utara (TNKU) under Salleh Am Sambas liberated. The marine company was under the command of Captain Jeremy Moore , who later served as Major General of the British Land Forces during the Falklands War . On June 8, 1963, he was a Lieutenant Commander ( Lieutenant Commander ) Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).

In 1967 Black became the commandant of the Daring-class destroyer HMS Decoy and remained in this position until the ship was sold to the Peruvian Navy in 1969 . In 1969 he was promoted to frigate captain and after various other assignments in 1974 to sea captain . He was in command of the County-class destroyer HMS Fife from 1977 to 1979 and became director of naval operations requirements in 1979 after attending the Royal College of Defense Studies (RCDS) in London .

Commander of HMS Invincible and Falklands War 1982

Jeremy Black was in command of the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible during the 1982 Falklands War

In January 1982, Captain Black succeeded Captain Michael Livesay in command of the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible . In April 1982 the HMS Invincible was relocated to the South Atlantic together with another aircraft carrier in order to build a protective shield around the forces of marines and parachute units entrusted with the reconquest of the Falkland Islands during the Falklands War after the invasion of Argentina . He was only ordered 48 hours earlier that the transfer to the Falkland Islands, 8,000 nautical miles away, was to be carried out. Like other military commanders, he was convinced that a diplomatic solution to the Falklands conflict could not be achieved and that any military response would have to begin before the intense South Atlantic winter. On the other hand, he saw an opportunity to prove the necessity of the HMS Invincible for the defense of Great Britain, which should actually be sold to the Royal Australian Navy on the basis of the defense report drawn up in 1981 .

The HMS Invincible consisted of 750 crew members and eleven Sea Harrier with 40 AIM-9 Sidewinder - air-to-air missiles and cluster bombs were armed. In addition, the aircraft carrier included around a dozen Sikorsky H-3 Sea King - multipurpose helicopters , which were entrusted with both attack and rescue missions, and Sea Dart - anti-aircraft missiles for the defense of the ship.

On board were Prince Andrew , the pilot of a Sea King helicopter, and five journalists who came to be known as the Invincible Five . The Defense Department had decided that journalists should only cover the early stages of the conflict ( Air War ) so that they would not receive the necessary equipment, training and support to land with the landing forces. This meant that, unlike the journalists who accompanied the Royal Marines and the paratrooper units to Stanley , they could only report on the events of the war from a distance.

Due to significant problems with the transmission system, the HMS Invincible did not reach the Falkland Islands until May 21, 1982, around seven weeks after the start of the conflict on April 2, 1982, which led to disputes with the commander of the task forces, Admiral Sandy Woodward . Unlike the latter, Black wanted to position his aircraft carrier closer to Port San Carlos in order to increase the effectiveness of his aircraft and thereby better protect the land associations from the attacks of the aircraft of the Fuerza Aérea Argentina . But since Woodward was afraid of the effects of losing an important ship and its flying units, he insisted that the HMS Invincible, along with the other aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, remain around 200 nautical miles east of the Falkland Islands. On the other hand, this led to the disappointment of the Royal Marines, paratrooper associations and naval forces, which were increasingly exposed to the Argentine air strikes, the so-called Bomb Alley .

Contrary to the claims of the military junta in Buenos Aires on May 30, 1982, the HMS Invincible suffered no significant damage from an Exocet anti -ship missile . This report was actually based on an inaccurate ship identification by an Argentine pilot. After the Falklands War was declared over by Great Britain on June 20, 1982, the aircraft carrier remained in the South Atlantic and did not return to Portsmouth until September 17, 1982 . When entering the port, the crew wore T-shirts with the imprint "There and Back with JJ Black", which he later used as the title for his 2005 autobiography There and Back . In 1982 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for his services in the Falklands War .

His hope that the government would keep the aircraft carrier due to the Falklands War came true, so the sale intentions were ended in 1983. His successor as commander of HMS Invincible was then Captain Nicholas Hill-Norton , the son of Fleet Admiral Peter Hill-Norton , who was, among other things, Chief of the Defense Staff and chairman of the NATO military committee in 1983 . Ultimately, the aircraft carrier took part in the Kosovo war before it was decommissioned on August 3, 2005.

Promotion to admiral

After the end of the Falklands War, Black was promoted to Rear Admiral in October 1982 and in 1983 to the Commander of the First Flotilla ( Flag Officer First Flotilla ) and thus responsible for half of the destroyers and frigates of the Royal Navy. In this position he remained until 1984 and was then replaced by Rear Admiral Robin Trower Hogg . After a position in the Ministry of Defense, he himself took over the newly created role as Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff in 1985 , which replaced the previous position of Vice Chiefs of the Naval Staff and the two previous ones Associated functions of Assistant Chiefs of Staff of the Navy for naval policy and operations. Associated with this was membership in the Admiralty Board .

As ACNS, Black was replaced by Rear Admiral Michael Livesay in 1986 and, after his promotion to Vice Admiral of Air Marshal Donald Hall, took over the position of Deputy Chief of the Defense Staff for Systems and held this position until his replacement by Lieutenant General Anthony Mullens 1989. On December 31, 1986 he was beaten Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) and from then on carried the suffix "Sir".

Most recently Black was promoted to Admiral in 1989 and succeeded Admiral Sandy Woodward as Commander-in-Chief of Naval Home Command at Portsmouth Naval Base. He held this position as commander in chief of the coastal naval units until 1991 and was then replaced by Admiral John Kerr . On June 15, 1991 he was beaten to the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE). In 1992 he retired from active military service.

Private sector and other engagement

After retiring from active military service, Black was a consultant for the armaments company British Aerospace from 1993 to 1997 and the champagne manufacturer Krug between 1996 and 1999 . In addition, he remained connected to the navy and seafaring and was between 1990 and 1994 chairman of the regatta sailing committee of the Whitbread Round the World Race . He was also a trustee of the Imperial War Museum between 1991 and 1997 and director of the National Army Museum between 2004 and 2010 .

In 2011, Black was among a group of former senior officers who wrote an open letter calling on Prime Minister David Cameron to reconsider proposed cuts in the defense budget.

His marriage to Pamela Barber in 1958 resulted in two sons and a daughter.

Publications

  • There and Back , autobiography, 2005

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ THE ASSAULT ON LIMBANG
  2. ↑ Eileen Chanin's Limbang Rebellion traces empire's sunset over southeast . In: The Australian of December 7, 2013
  3. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 43010, HMSO, London, June 8, 1963, p. 4798 ( PDF , accessed February 4, 2016, English).
  4. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 49134, HMSO, London, October 8, 1982, p. 12832 ( PDF , accessed February 4, 2016, English).
  5. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 50764, HMSO, London, December 30, 1986, p. 2 ( PDF , accessed February 4, 2016, English).
  6. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 52563, HMSO, London, June 14, 1991, p. 5 ( PDF , accessed February 4, 2016, English).
personal data
SURNAME Black, Jeremy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Black, John Jeremy (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British admiral
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Horrabridge , Devon
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 2015
Place of death Durley , Hampshire