Victor Danckwerts

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Victor Hilary Danckwerts (born January 11, 1899 in London , † March 1, 1944 in New Zealand) was a British admiral .

Life and activity

Danckwerts was the second of three sons of the lawyer William Otto Adolph Julius Danckwerts and his wife Caroline Marion, nee. Lowther. In 1904 he entered the Royal Navy to begin his military training at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. In March 1909 he entered active naval service. In 1910 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. In 1914 he took part in the Battle of Falklands. In 1915 he witnessed the sinking of the SMS Dresden on the HMS Kent .

In 1923 Danckwerts became an instructor at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich. He then commanded a destroyer in the Atlantic fleet and then the HMS Caradoc. In 1930 Danckwerts was promoted to captain .

From 1932 to 1938 Danckwerts served as Associate Director of the Planning Department of the British Admiralty and then from 1938 to 1940 as Head of the Planning Department. In 1935 he was involved in the downing of the German-British naval agreement. In 1936 he took part as a representative at the London Naval Conference.

At the end of the 1930s, Danckwerts was classified as an important target by the police forces of National Socialist Germany. In the spring of 1940, the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people whom the Nazi surveillance apparatus considered particularly dangerous or important, which is why they should be removed from the occupation troops in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht Subsequent SS special commands were to be identified and arrested with special priority

1940 to 1942 he was a representative of the British Navy in Washington. As part of this activity, Danckwerts took part in numerous staff meetings that defined and organized the cooperation between the Western Allies at sea during the Second World War. 1940 was promoted to Rear Admiral (Rear Admiral) and 1941 of Vice Admiral .

Danckwerts was appointed Deputy Commander in Chief of the British Asian Fleet (Eastern Fleet) in 1943. However, he fell seriously ill soon after arriving in New Zealand and died of the consequences. His body was buried on the sea.

Honors

Today, plaque 81 in the 1st column of the Portsmouth Marine Memorial commemorates Danckwerts.

family

In 1915 Danckwerts married Joyce Middleton, with whom he had three sons and two daughters. His son Peter Danckwerts (1916–1985) received the St. George Cross in 1985 for defusing 16 air mines dropped by German bombers within 48 hours during the Battle of Britain. He later made it Professor and Fellow of the Royal Society.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ HMS Hood Crew Information
  2. ↑ http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-06CL-Caradoc.htm
  3. ^ Entry on Danckwerts on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London) .
personal data
SURNAME Danckwerts, Victor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Danckwerts, Victor Hilary (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British admiral
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 1944
Place of death New Zealand