Philip Vian

Philip Vian

Sir Philip Louis Vian GCB , KBE , DSO (born July 15, 1894 in London , † May 27, 1968 in Ashford Hill , Basingstoke and Deane ) was a British naval admiral .

youth

In May 1907 Vian joined the Royal Navy as a cadet and graduated from the Royal Naval College with honors in 1911 . The first ship on which he served was the cruiser HMS Cornwall , which was stationed on the east coast of Canada . He then served on the liner HMS Lord Nelson , which was then assigned to the Atlantic Fleet .

First World War

At the beginning of the First World War he was stationed on a cruiser that went on patrols on the African coast, after which he was transferred to the new destroyer HMS Morning Star , with which he took part in the Battle of the Skagerrak .

In 1917 he was first officer on the two destroyers HMS Ossory and HMS Sorceress and at the end of the World War he was appointed as a gun officer on the battle cruiser HMAS Australia .

Between the world wars

Until 1930 he was used on the battleship HMS Thunderer and two other battleships in the Mediterranean and then on the cruiser HMS Kent in East Asia.

In the following time he was commander of the destroyer HMS Active and commander of the 3rd destroyer flotilla in the Mediterranean. In this position he was in war readiness during the Italian invasion of Abyssinia and later evacuated British citizens during the Spanish Civil War .

Second World War

Vian became flag captain of Rear Admiral Lionel Wells on the cruiser HMS Arethusa in the Mediterranean. With the outbreak of the Second World War he was again in command of a destroyer flotilla with the flagship HMS Mackay , which was stationed in Liverpool and was supposed to escort Allied convoys.

In the spring of 1940 he became the commander of the 4th destroyer flotilla, which had been equipped with the new destroyers of the Tribal class . His flagship was the HMS Cossack , with which he violated the neutral Norwegian territorial waters in February 1940 in order to free the British seamen who were on the German tanker Altmark , which was the supply ship of the ironclad Admiral Graf Spee and after it was scuttled off Montevideo went to Norway, which was neutral at the time. The Altmark incident made Vian known to the general public, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and was celebrated as a naval hero as early as 1940.

In April 1940 he penetrated again into Norwegian waters to land British troops in Namsos , which should retake Trondheim .

In May 1941 his destroyers took part in the hunt for the German battleship Bismarck and on the night of May 26th to 27th he attacked the Bismarck with several torpedoes, which, however, missed their target in poor visibility. The destroyers were not involved in the direct final battle of the Bismarck .

Later in 1941, Vian took over a squadron of cruisers between Malta and Alexandria , which drove convoy protection against the Italian fleet to supply Malta with essential goods. In this capacity he was British Commander-in-Chief in the naval battle in the Gulf of Syrte .

In September 1943 he commanded Force V, which consisted of five small escort aircraft carriers, to cover the Allied landing near Salerno (→ Operation Avalanche ).

During Operation Overlord , the landing in Normandy , he was in command of the British naval units (→ naval warfare during Operation Overlord ); he had chosen the cruiser HMS Scylla as his flagship . His job was to bombard the Juno, Gold and Sword landing sections and to give cover fire to the landing forces.

As commanding flag officer of the 1st Aircraft Carrier Squadron, he began his service with the Eastern Fleet on Ceylon in November 1944 , whose Commander-in-Chief was Admiral Bruce Fraser . Under his command were the executions of Operation Outflank with Operations Robson , Lentil and Meridian against Japanese oil and port facilities in West Sumatra .

In 1945 he became Commander in Chief of Task Force 57 of the British Pacific Fleet , which consisted mainly of aircraft carriers and covered the American landing on Okinawa (→ Operation Iceberg ). His forces then launched attacks on the main Japanese islands.

Last years

In 1946 he was appointed Fifth Sea Lord and when he retired from active service in 1952, Admiral of the Fleet , immediately after him in 1953 Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Consort of the Queen, was awarded this title. This title is actually only awarded to the king or prince consort of the queen and the first sea lords, such as Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma . Vian was the only Fifth Sea Lord to receive the title, as he had been recognized for his successful fleet management in World War II. He was also Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath .

After active military service, he was on the board of several companies. Vian died at his Ashford Hill home in late May 1968 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christopher Chant: The Encyclopedia of Codenames of World War II . Verlag Routledge Kegan & Paul, 1987, ISBN 978-0-7102-0718-0 (English, codenames.info [accessed July 8, 2020]).
2. ^ Jon Robb-Webb: The British Pacific Fleet Experience and Legacy, 1944-50 . Routledge, London and New York 2016, ISBN 978-1-138-27495-2 , pp. 110 ff . (English, google.de [accessed on July 10, 2020]).

Web links

• Biography (English)