Reginald Bacon

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Reginald Bacon (ca.1915)

Admiral Sir Reginald Hugh Spencer Bacon , KCB , KCVO , DSO (born September 6, 1863 in Wiggonholt , England , † June 9, 1947 in Romsey , England) was a British naval officer in the Royal Navy . The first sea lord John “Jacky” Fisher said of him: “acknowledged to be the cleverest officer in the Navy” (German: the recognized cleverest officer in the Navy).

Life

Bacon was born on September 6, 1863 in Wiggonholt, West Sussex, the youngest of eight siblings. His parents were the pastor Reverent Thomas Bacon and his wife Lavinia Emma Bacon. He was married to Cicely Surtees of Darlington since 1897. With her he had three children, a daughter and two sons. A son died as a midshipman at a pneumonia , the other fell in the First World War . Bacon died on June 9, 1947 in Romsey, Hampshire.

Career

Bacon joined the Royal Navy in 1877 and became an officer in charge of torpedoes as a lieutenant . In 1896 he first took command of a small flotilla of torpedo boats during the year’s great naval maneuver. In 1897 he was a member of the punitive expedition to Benin under the command of Admiral Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson . The capital was Benin City ransacked and pillaged . The walls of Benin , the largest man-made structure ever, were ravaged and destroyed. He wrote the book Benin: City of Blood about this massacre .

In 1900 he was promoted to captain and got the newly created position as Inspecting Captain of Submarines . His task was the introduction and further development of submarines in the Royal Navy. At that time, the submarine fleet consisted of the five Holland-class boats . In August 1901, the torpedo boat HMS Hazard was added as the world's first submarine tender . In addition to this task, he was sent by King Edward VII in 1901 on diplomatic missions to Austria-Hungary , the Kingdom of Romania , the Kingdom of Serbia and Turkey .

In June 1906 he took command of the new battleship HMS Dreadnought . He commanded the ship during the test drives and on its first voyage to the West Indies . From August 1907 he was then Director of Naval Ordnance and Torpedoes in the Naval Ordnance Department as the successor to Admiral John Jellicoe .

In July 1909 he was promoted to Rear Admiral. In November 1909, he left active service and joined Coventry Ordnance Works, Ltd. , a subsidiary of Cammell, Laird & Company , as director . Here he was u. a. responsible for the development and production of the QF 4.5-Inch Howitzer , the BL 5.5-Inch Mk I naval gun, the BL 9.2-Inch Howitzer. With the outbreak of World War I, he helped develop the BL 15-inch Howitzer. Only on the direct intervention of Winston Churchill , then First Lord of the Admiralty , the Royal Marine Artillery Brigade was set up with twelve guns and Bacon became its commander with the rank of extra-colonel . The first of these guns was shipped to France in February 1915. On orders from Winston Churchill and Jackie Fisher, a gun was also to be brought to Gallipoli . The gun was ready for transport when Bacon was recalled to England. He assumed the position of Commander in Chief, Dover , Admiral in charge of the units stationed in Dover. He succeeded Rear Admiral Sir Horace Hood there .

This post also included command of the Dover Patrol . As their commander, he planned, among other things, the attack on Zeebrugge and Ostend and was involved in the planning and implementation of the North Sea mine barrier . After giving this command, he retired and devoted himself to writing.

bibliography

  • Benin: City of Blood . Edward Arnold, London 1897. OCLC 4454844
  • The Dover Patrol . Hutchinson & Co., London 1919. OCLC 1136826
  • The Jutland Scandal . Hutchinson & Co., London 1925. OCLC 1900062
  • A Naval Scrap Book. First part, 1877-1900 . Hutchinson & Co., London 1925. OCLC 6080198
  • The Stolen Submarine: a Story of Woman's Pluck . Nash & Greyson, London 1926. OCLC 316187982
  • A social sinner . Nash & Greyson, London 1926. OCLC 316187977
  • The Motor-Car And How It Works . Mills & Boon, London 1927. OCLC 843000176
  • Bacon, R.H. S. A Simple Guide To Wireless, For All Whose Knowledge of Electricity is Childlike . Mills & Boon, London 1930. OCLC 220643179
  • The Concise Story of the Dover Patrol . Hutchinson & Co., London 1932. OCLC 1899634
  • The Life of John Rusworth, Lord Jellicoe . Cassell & Co., London 1936.
  • From 1900 onward . Hutchinson & Co., London 1940. OCLC 8104542
  • Modern Naval Strategy . Frederick Muller, London 1941. OCLC 17241075
  • Britain's Glorious Navy . Odhams Press, London 1942. OCLC 3139787
  • Warfare Today. How Modern Battles are Planned and Fought on Land, at Sea, and in the Air. Odhams Press, London 1944.
  • The Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone. Vol. 1. Doubleday, New York 1929, ISBN 1-4325-9362-5 .
  • The Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone. Vol. 2. Doubleday, New York 1929, ISBN 1-4325-9351-X .

Web links

Commons : Sir Reginald Bacon  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sir Reginald Hugh Spencer Bacon Vita on Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved January 14, 2020. (English)
  2. ^ Ruddock F. Mackay: Fisher of Kilverstone . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1973, p. 297.
  3. ↑ Adml. Sir Reginald Bacon (obituary) . Obituary in The Times (50783) June 10, 1947, p. 6. (English)
  4. ↑ Benin: The sack that was. Article by Professor Ekpo Eyo, OFR on edo-nation.net. Retrieved January 14, 2020. (English)
  5. ↑ The King - the special Embassies . Article in The Times (36410) March 23, 1901, p.12.
  6. ^ The Director Of Naval Ordnance . Article in The Times (39125) November 24, 1909, p.9.
personal data
SURNAME Bacon, Reginald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hugh Spencer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Royal Navy Admiral
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiggonholt , West Sussex, England
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 1947
Place of death Romsey , Hampshire, England