Raymond Lygo

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Sir Raymond "Ray" Derek Lygo KCB (born March 15, 1924 in Ilford , Essex , † March 7, 2012 in Portugal ) was a British admiral in the Royal Navy and economic manager , the Vice-Chief of Naval Staff and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of British Aerospace , and as such played a significant role during the so-called Westland Affair .

Life

Career in the Royal Navy

Naval aviator and commander of HMS Ark Royal

Lygo, son of a typesetter in the London newspaper offices in Fleet Street , left school in 1938 at the age of fourteen years and was an office boy at The Times before he 1942 as Airman Second Class was inducted into the Royal Navy, and his military training in Canada completed .

After completing his pilot training, he was a pilot on board the aircraft carrier Indefatigable during the Second World War , and took part in convoy flights to northern Russia , as well as in the attack flights on the battleship Tirpitz , which capsized the ship on November 12, 1944. Most recently it was used in combat missions in the Far East .

After the end of the Second World War, he was initially an instructor in the Royal Navy, before he flew the first jet aircraft in the US Navy between 1949 and 1951 to expand his aviation skills . He was then commander of the first squadron of the Royal Navy for the training of pilots on jet aircraft, which was also used as the first squadron on the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, which was commissioned in 1955 .

In 1956 he became Commander of Lowestoft and then Deputy Director of Naval Air Warfare on the staff of the Royal Navy. That first experience at the Department of Defense came at a time when a dispute arose between the Navy and the Royal Air Force (RAF) over the future of fixed-wing aircraft in the Navy. He also used his relationships with Chapman Pincher , the influential defense correspondent for the Daily Express newspaper, to support his position .

In 1965 he became commander of the Juno , a newly commissioned frigate of the Leander class . During his tenure as commander of the Ark Royal aircraft carrier , which he began in 1969, during a night exercise with a NATO fleet in the Mediterranean Sea in 1970 a collision with a Kotlin-class destroyer of the Soviet Navy , which was shadowing the aircraft carrier. The Ark Royal suffered only minor damage in the collision .

Admiral and Vice Chief of Naval Staff

Lygo was then promoted to Rear Admiral, and as such was initially responsible for aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships , before he was then director of the Royal Navy for naval personnel and training.

During his subsequent employment as Vice Chief of Naval Staff, he assumed awkward responsibility in 1975 during the so-called Third Cod War between Great Britain and Iceland , when the Navy frigates fought unsustainable duels in maneuvers with the more nimble Icelandic gunboats that Lygo was relieved to find that no one was killed.

In 1977 he was made Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and from then on he had the addition of Sir . After a brief final use as Acting First Sea Lord , he entered in 1978 into the retirement .

Activities in the private sector

Promotion to CEO of British Aerospace

After retiring from active military service, he moved into the private sector in 1978 to become director of British Aerospace's Dynamics group, which manufactured guided missiles and worked vigorously to develop a dysfunctional organization. Employees from the navy were recruited to sharpen the organizational structure for the privatization planned for 1981 .

Because of his success, after privatization, he initially became Chairman of the Board of Management and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Dynamics Group, before becoming Managing Director in 1983 and finally CEO of British Aerospace in 1986. In this role, he worked with Austin Pearce , the company's chief executive officer. One of his greatest achievements was securing state aid for the start of the Airbus A 320 thanks to the good relations he had with Industry and Trade Minister Norman Tebbit , who was also a former pilot. Annoyed by British Aerospace's previous practice of double or triple payments to the Department of Defense under the old cost-plus system based on changed specifications, he called for binding contracts.

The Westland Aircraft Affair

However, in late 1986 he was surprised by the actions of Sir John Cuckney in the Westland Aircraft affair . Cuckney, a former Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) employee , has been named Chairman of the Board of Westland Aircraft , the UK's only helicopter manufacturer to face bankruptcy , with the assistance of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher . Cuckney's preferred solution was to sell the company to the US- based Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation .

Defense Minister Michael Heseltine , alarmed by the possible loss of European manufacturing capacity, brokered an alternative European solution, which Aerospace joined under Lygo's leadership. Sikorsky continued his recruiting continues, with the result that has been fought in politics and the media on both sides of it, on a shareholder's annual general meeting to obtain the necessary voting majorities.

Lygo was then accused of anti-Americanism. During a conversation with Industry Minister Leon Brittan , in which Lygo referred to his relationship with the United States due to his marriage to an American woman, but also to his military service in the United States, Brittan stated that British Aerospace's involvement in their interests USA are not conducive and that the company should distance itself from its plans. Lygo was angry with the minister’s point of view, so Cuckney, with the help of unknown groups of shareholders, succeeded in his plans to sell to the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation.

Lygo later found some satisfaction in the fact that Brittan had to resign as minister when it became known that he had leaked a critical dossier on Michael Heseltine to the press, who was pursuing a different strategy on the matter.

In the following years he played a key role in the purchase of the car manufacturer Rover in 1988 , whereby this transaction was already overseen by the future chairman of the board, Roland Smith .

CEO of TNT Express

After leaving British Aerospace in 1989, Lygo became CEO of the delivery company TNT Express in 1992 . He was also involved in the education foundation of the British business association Confederation of British Industry and in the think tank The Work Foundation .

Lygo, who wrote a 1991 research report on the management of British prisons , also campaigned for fundraising for the National Deafblind and the Rubella Association . In 2002 he published his autobiography Collision Course .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Knights and Dames: KIN-LYV at Leigh Rayment's Peerage