Max Kennedy Horton

Max Horton (1943)

Sir Max Kennedy Horton , GCB , DSO ( November 29, 1883 - July 30, 1951 ) was a British submarine commander in World War I and admiral in World War II .

First World War

Horton joined the Royal Navy in September 1898, when he was just under 15 . He received his officer license as a sub-lieutenant in 1903 and went to the submarine weapon. In 1905 he became lieutenant (captain lieutenant) and commander of the submarine D 6 , which he commanded even after promotion to lieutenant commander (corvette captain) in 1912 and until 1914.

When the war broke out, Horton was in command of one of the first British ocean-going submarines, the 800-ton HMS E 9 . At dawn on September 13, 1914, he torpedoed the German small cruiser SMS Hela about six nautical miles south-southwest of Heligoland . The Hela was hit amidships by two torpedoes fired from about 550 meters away and sank. Except for two men, however, their entire crew was rescued by the German submarine U 18 and a merchant ship. Horton's boat was chased by the Germans all day but escaped to Harwich . When entering the port, Horton established the tradition of British submarines to set the black pirate flag Jolly Roger with a skull and two crossed bones after a successful sinking .

Three weeks later, Horton sank the German torpedo boat T 116 off the mouth of the Ems . For these two successes he received the " Distinguished Service Order " (DSO).

In October, Horton was ordered to the Baltic Sea, where he and several other British submarines were placed under the command of the Russian Commander-in-Chief Admiral Nikolai von Essen . Of Reval from operierend Horton managed to damage one another torpedo boat ( S 148 ) and the sinking of several commercial ships, the iron ore should bring from Sweden to Germany. On December 31, 1914 he was promoted to commander (frigate captain) and appointed commander of the British Baltic submarine flotilla. On July 2, 1915, he succeeded in torpedoing and damaging the German armored cruiser SMS Prinz Adalbert . In 1915 he returned to England and took over the large submarine J.6 , with which he was used in the North Sea. This was followed by the command of the construction and testing of the new M 1 submarine , which, in addition to torpedo tubes, also carried a 30.5-cm gun in a barbette on the forecastle .

In 1917 Horton received a first, and in 1920 - in the meantime promoted to captain ( sea ​​captain ) - a second clasp to his DSO in recognition of his services as commander of British submarines in the Baltic Sea.

Interwar period

During the interwar years, Horton commanded the cruiser HMS Conquest from 1922 to 1924 and the battleship HMS Resolution from 1930 to 1932 , with staff assignments in between. On October 17, 1932 he was promoted to Rear Admiral ( rear admiral ) and appointed commander of the 2nd battle squadron ; he set his flag on the battleship HMS Malaya . In 1935 he took over the 1st cruiser squadron, with the flagship HMS London . In 1937 he became Vice Admiral and Commander of the Reserve Fleet .

At the New Year's ceremonies in 1939, Horton was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) and thus raised to the nobility as "Sir".

Second World War

When the Second World War broke out, Horton was given command of the so-called Northern Patrol , which was responsible for the naval blockade against the German Empire between the Orkney Islands and the Faroe Islands . In 1940 he became Commander-in-Chief (CinC) of all submarines stationed in British home waters, with the task of modernizing the submarine weapon. On January 9, 1941, he was promoted to admiral.

On November 17, 1942, Horton received the supreme command of the so-called Western Approaches , the sea area northwest of the British Isles in which the convoys from North America were the target of German submarine attacks. Horton introduced tactical changes in the security of the convoy, which over time, and especially from 1943, turned the German submarines from hunters to the hunted. He also benefited from the technical advances made by the Royal Navy in tracking down submerged submarines. Horton and his predecessor, Admiral Sir Percy Noble , are counted among the figures who made a decisive contribution to the Allied victory in the Atlantic war. He was elevated to the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) on June 14, 1945 .

In August 1945, a passionate golfer , Horton applied for his retirement to make way for junior officers. From 1946 to 1951 he was "King of Arms" (Herald) of the Order of Bath, the highest office of the Order after the Dean.

Web links

Commons : Max Kennedy Horton  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Max Horton in “uboat.net”