Peter Hill-Norton

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Peter John Hill-Norton, Baron Hill-Norton GCB (born February 8, 1915 in Germiston , South Africa , † May 16, 2004 in Studland , Dorset ) was a British Admiral ( Admiral of the Fleet ) of the Royal Navy , the First Sea Lord and Was Chief of the Naval Staff ( First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff ), Chief of the Defense Staff and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee and became a member of the House of Lords in 1979 as Life Peer under the Life Peerages Act 1958 .

Life

Training as a naval officer and World War II

Hill-Norton, son of a mining engineer who served in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) during World War I , entered the Royal Naval College of Dartmouth as a cadet at the age of thirteen in 1928 and received his first nautical training on the cruisers HMS Frobisher (D81) and HMS London (69) . On July 1, 1935, he was promoted to lieutenant at sea and on October 1, 1936 to lieutenant at sea . He completed further nautical training on the battleships HMS Malaya , HMS Rodney from the Admiral class and HMS Ramillies (07) before he received training as an artillery officer in 1939 .

At the beginning of the Second World War , Hill-Norton served on the HMS Cairo (D87) , an older light cruiser that had recently been converted to an anti-aircraft cruiser. In the following period he was deployed in the western approach to the Atlantic and the North Sea , where HMS Cairo launched air and submarine attacks in April and May 1940 when troops landed in Narvik, which was occupied by the German Wehrmacht as part of the Weser exercise got over. However, the ship was damaged on May 28, 1940 and withdrawn for repair work.

Subsequently, Hill-Norton was transferred to the HMS Cumberland (57) , a heavy cruiser of the County class , and took part on this in northern sea convoys to Russia , such as the failed convoy PQ 17 in July 1942. In 1943 he was assigned to artillery and air defense department of the Admiralty placed and there on April 1, 1944 Lieutenant Commander ( Lieutenant Commander promoted). A little later there was again a nautical use on the battleship HMS Howe (32) , which operated off Sumatra and took part in the attack on the Sakishima Islands occupied by Japan to support the US Navy attacks on the Okinawa Islands .

Post-war period, naval attaché and ship commander

The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal , of which Hill-Norton was in command between 1959 and 1961

After the abandonment of Hong Kong by Japan, Hill-Norton was transferred to the Crown Colony-class light cruiser HMS Nigeria (60) in 1945 , the flagship of the South Atlantic naval base . After his promotion to frigate captain ( Commander ) he returned to the artillery and air defense department of the Admiralty. He then became an administrative officer in 1951 on the newly commissioned aircraft carrier HMS Eagle (R05) , where he took part in the Exercise Mainbrace , one of NATO's first major military maneuvers .

On December 31, 1952 Hill-Norton was promoted to captain at sea ( Captain ) and then transferred as a naval attaché to the embassy in Argentina , where he was also responsible for Paraguay and Uruguay . After a subsequent employment as a commanding officer ( Commanding Officer ) of the destroyer HMS Decoy (D106) he returned to the Admiralty and was there as a director of tactical and weapons policy ( Tactical and Weapons Policy ). After that he was in command of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (R09) from 1959 to 1961 , which had a number of problems.

Promotion to admiral

Juliana receives Peter Hill-Norton and his wife at Palais Soestdijk (July 4, 1974)

After Hill-Norton on January 8, 1962. Rear Admiral ( Rear Admiral had been promoted), he was Deputy Chief of Naval Staff ( Assistant Chief of Naval Staff ). At the time, the Royal Navy tried unsuccessfully to advocate a new generation of aircraft carriers to replace ships like the Ark Royal and others. In 1964 Hill-Norton, who became Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) on January 1, 1964 , received his last naval command as flag officer and deputy commander of the Far East Fleet , the Royal Navy's naval unit operating in the Indian and Pacific Oceans , and held this position as a representative of the then commanders Admiral Desmond Dreyer and Admiral Frank Twiss until 1966. During this time he was promoted to Vice Admiral ( Vice Admiral ) on August 7, 1965 .

He was then in 1966 at the Defense Department entrusted the position as Deputy Chief of Defense Staff with responsibility for personnel and logistics, before to succeed Admiral Desmond Dreyer 1967 Second Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff ( Second Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel ) in the Admiralty was. On January 1, 1967, he became Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) and has since had the suffix "Sir".

Eight months later, in the fall of 1967, he followed Admiral John Bush as Vice Chief of Naval Staff , while his former superior Admiral Frank Twiss followed him in the role of Second Sea Lord. On October 1, 1968 he was promoted to admiral. As Vice-Chief of Naval Staff, until his replacement by Admiral Edward Ashmore in 1969, he was instrumental in the plans for the 1980 introduction of the Invincible class of aircraft carriers .

On March 7, 1969 returned Admiral Hill-Norton in the Far East, where he General Michael Carver took over the role as Commander in Chief of the British Far East Command and this until his replacement by Air Chief Marshal Brian Burnett held 1970th

First Sea Lord and Chief of Defense Staff

After Admiral Michael Le Fanu had resigned from health as First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff on July 3, 1970 , Hill-Norton, who on June 13, 1970, was Knight Grand Cross des Order of the Bath (GCB) was raised, his successor and thus took over his seventh post within six years. On March 12, 1971, he was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet .

Nonetheless, eight months later, on April 9, 1971, he succeeded Marshal of the Royal Air Force Charles Elworthy as Chief of Defense Staff , while Admiral Michael Pollock himself followed him as First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff. Hill-Norton held the position of Chief of Defense Staff until his replacement by Field Marshal Michael Carver on October 22, 1973, and was thus a leading military advisor during much of Prime Minister Edward Heath's tenure . A key development of this time was the final commitment in favor of the Chevaline project to improve the UGM-27 Polaris program.

Chairman of the NATO Military Committee

1974 Hill-Norton followed the Bundeswehr - General Johannes Steinhoff as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee and thus the highest military authority of NATO. He stayed at this post until 1977 and was then replaced by the Norway Herman F. Zeiner Gunderson .

His tenure was marked by signs of potential weakness due to the looming US defeat in the Vietnam War , the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resulting economic recession in the industrialized world. He made it clear that the previous military balance would shift in favor of the Warsaw Pact and that the NATO allies would not apply their weight to prevent it. In addition, he campaigned for the standardization of military equipment in partner countries. He also served as chairman of the Royal Navy Club in 1978 .

House of Lords

For his many years of service, Hill-Norton was raised to a Life Peer by a letters patent dated February 5, 1979 as Baron Hill-Norton , of South Nutfield in the County of Surrey, and was thus a member of the House of Lords until his death .

In the following years he also dealt with defense policy issues in debates in the House of Lords and in public appearances. In 1981 he warned that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party government was playing a 'gamble with security' because it believed that defense could be bought like washing powder in a grocery store and only with a view to it would think of a short European war.

When he his book 1982 Sea Power imagined he explained that Defense ( Secretary of Defense ) John Nott "know nothing about defense, and show no apparent inclination to learn" (, does not understand defense, and shows no apparent inclination to learn '). After the outbreak of the Falklands War in April 1982, he was an outspoken supporter of a blockade of the Falkland Islands .

The subsequent cuts in spending on the UK Armed Forces due to Options for Change in the early 1990s did not match his view of politicians, whom he believed to be blind. He vehemently opposed proposals to cut army pensions and called Defense Minister Michael Portillo , appointed in 1995, "a little creep" because of his proposals to sell naval buildings.

He was also known for believing the presence of UFOs to be possible, such as after the Rendlesham Forest incident in late December 1980 and thus a well-known supporter of British ufology .

Baron Hill-Norton, who was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in 1973 , was also President of the Sea Cadets 'Association , the Defense Manufacturers' Association and the British Maritime League, and Vice-President of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

His marriage to Margaret Eileen Linstow in 1936 resulted in two children, including Vice Admiral Nicholas Hill-Norton , who was most recently Deputy Chief of Defense between 1992 and 1995.

Publications

  • No Soft Options , 1978
  • Sea Power , 1982

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. London Gazette . No. 34314, HMSO, London, August 14, 1936, p. 5343 ( PDF , accessed October 19, 2013, English).
  2. London Gazette . No. 34379, HMSO, London, March 12, 1937, p. 1641 ( PDF , accessed October 19, 2013, English).
  3. London Gazette . No. 36522, HMSO, London, May 19, 1944, p. 2297 ( PDF , accessed October 19, 2013, English).
  4. London Gazette . No. 39749, HMSO, London, January 9, 1953, p. 220 ( PDF , accessed October 19, 2013, English).
  5. London Gazette . No. 42516, HMSO, London, November 17, 1961, p. 8344 ( PDF , accessed October 19, 2013, English).
  6. London Gazette . No. 43200, HMSO, London, December 31, 1963, p. 2 ( PDF , accessed October 19, 2013, English).
  7. London Gazette . No. 43758, HMSO, London, September 7, 1965, p. 8447 ( PDF , accessed October 19, 2013, English).
  8. London Gazette . No. 44210, HMSO, London, December 30, 1966, p. 2 ( PDF , accessed October 19, 2013, English).
  9. London Gazette . No. 44699, HMSO, London, October 18, 1968, p. 11321 ( PDF , accessed October 19, 2013, English).
  10. London Gazette . No. 45117, HMSO, London, June 8, 1970, p. 6366 ( PDF , accessed October 19, 2013, English).
  11. London Gazette . No. 45331, HMSO, London, March 30, 1971, p. 2937 ( PDF , accessed October 19, 2013, English).
  12. London Gazette . No. 45168, HMSO, London, August 7, 1970, p. 8853 ( PDF , accessed October 19, 2013, English).
  13. CHAIRMEN OF THE ROYAL NAVY CLUB
  14. London Gazette . No. 47765, HMSO, London, February 8, 1979, p. 1737 ( PDF , accessed October 19, 2013, English).
  15. ^ Admiral Lord Hill-Norton
  16. Lord Hill Norton Former NATO Head Tells the UFO reality ( YouTube )
predecessor Office successor
Sir Charles Elworthy Chief of the Defense Staff
1971-1973
Sir Michael Carver
Johannes Steinhoff Chairman of the NATO Military Committee
1974–1977
Herman F. Zeiner Gunderson