Lancelot Holland

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Lancelot Holland around 1940

Lancelot Ernest Holland CB (born September 13, 1887 in Banbury , † May 24, 1941 in Denmark Street ) was a British admiral.

Early years

Holland was one of seven children of a doctor, who is also the brewer for the company Hunt and Edmonds beer brewing. On May 15, 1902, he entered the Royal Navy and spent the first years on the ships HMS Britannia , HMS Eclipse and HMS Hampshire in China until August 1905. When he returned home, he was transferred to the rescue ship HMS Research , with him I didn't like the service there very much. He was then transferred to the Royal Navy Artillery School, HMS Excellent , as he was able to train as a gunner there in Portsmouth . His achievements then brought him to the artillery school in Greenwich , where he took advanced courses for gun officers.

First World War

Throughout the First World War, Holland spent at HMS Excellent in Portsmouth as an instructor for the offspring of gun officers; he did not take part in any naval battle of the war.

Between the world wars

After the war he continued to work as a trainer. On December 31, 1919 he was promoted to frigate captain and on June 30, 1926 he became a sea ​​captain .

Between May 1929 and February 1931 he was in command of the cruiser HMS Hawkins , from May 1931 to September 1932 he was chief of the British naval mission in Greece and from July 1934 to July 1935 he was in command of the battleship HMS Revenge .

In 1937 he was appointed Rear Admiral and from January 1938 to August 1939 was in command of the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet with the flagship HMS Resolution . He was then posted to the Ministry of Aviation as a representative of the Navy .

Second World War

From July 1940 he was in command of the 7th Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean . In this capacity he led his cruisers in the naval battle of Cape Teulada on November 27, 1940. He underlined his reputation as an expert in gun matters.

Last command

The Hood in the Panama Canal, 1924

In 1941 the battle cruiser squadron was subordinated to him. His flagship was the Hood , and only the two battle cruisers Repulse and Renown existed . They were the last ships of this type in the Royal Navy, the basis of which was the idea of Admiral John Fisher that a ship should be as fast as possible and that therefore the armor could be neglected ("Speed ​​is the best protection."). For this reason, these ships were armored on the British side only on the hull, deck armor was almost non-existent. In the Battle of the Skagerrak during the First World War, the United Kingdom lost three ships of this type because they were insufficiently armored. The horizontal armor had become more and more important because of the increasing distance to battle and the resulting threat from steep fire .

Two of the three battle cruisers were planned at the beginning of the First World War and were overhauled between the wars, although the horizontal armor was only slightly reinforced; more emphasis was placed on better mine and torpedo protection. The Hood itself was built in 1916 according to a new design with better deck armor, but this too could only be dimensioned poorly due to its enormous length.

The new German battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz were almost identical to the Hood in terms of their armament and even somewhat slower, but had far better armor in all areas. When it was commissioned, no British battleship, with the exception of the three battlecruisers mentioned, could outperform it.

On May 23, 1941, Holland received the order to intercept the battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen in the Denmark Strait. Lying in an Icelandic fjord, he was responsible for the Hood and the new battleship Prince of Wales , which was not yet fully operational and therefore still had shipyard workers on board. Holland was escorted by six destroyers on an intercept course in a northerly direction on the Denmark Strait when the German ships came into view at dawn on May 24, 1941.

Since Holland knew about the inadequate armor of its flagship, he ran almost directly towards the German ships in order to reduce the battle distance as quickly as possible. However, he could only use the front towers of his heavy units. His opponent, Admiral Günter Lütjens on the Bismarck , turned his ships on early so that he could use all heavy artillery and even medium artillery.

The two German ships now concentrated their fire on the Hood , so that after about six minutes it had already received several hits and the ready-to-use ammunition of the anti-aircraft guns had started to burn. When asked what to do, Holland replied absorbed in the battle: "Let the ammunition burn." This is the last sentence he has come down to us. A minute later, a Bismarck shell detonated in the ship's main ammunition depot. The explosion tore the ship apart; With the exception of three sailors, the entire crew including Admiral Holland perished in the sinking of the Hood .

Private

Holland was married with a son, John, who died of polio in 1935 at the age of 18 .

literature

personal data
SURNAME Holland, Lancelot
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Holland, Lancelot Ernest (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British admiral
DATE OF BIRTH September 13, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Banbury
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 1941
Place of death Denmark Strait