Victor Alexander Charles Crutchley

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Victor Alexander Charles Crutchley.
2 November 1893 – 24 January 1986
Admiral Sir Victor Alexander Charles Crutchley
Admiral Sir Victor Alexander Charles Crutchley
Place of birth London, Great Britain
Place of death Nettlecombe, Great Britain
Allegiance Royal Navy
Years of service 1906–1947
Rank Admiral
Commands HMS Diomede
Captain, Fishery Protection and Mine-Sweeping Flotilla
HMS Warspite
HMNB Devonport
Australian Squadron
Royal Navy Dockyard, Gibraltar
Battles/wars World War I World War II
Awards Victoria Cross
KCB
DSC
Croix de guerre
Legion of Merit

Admiral Sir Victor Alexander Charles Crutchley VC KCB DSC Croix de guerre Legion of Merit RN (November 2, 1893 – January 24, 1986) was a British admiral in World War II and a hero of the First World War.

Contents

[edit] Beginnings

Victor Alexander Charles Crutchley was born on 24 January at 28 Lennox Gardens, Chelsea, London, the only son of Percy Edward Crutchley (1855–1940) and the Hon. Frederica Louisa Fitzroy (1864–1932), second daughter of Charles FitzRoy, 3rd Baron Southampton. He joined the Navy in 1906 and entered the Royal Naval College, Osborne.

[edit] World War I

In September, 1915 Crutchley was promoted Lieutenant and posted to the dreadnought HMS Centurion of The Grand Fleet. Centurion, under the command of Captain Michael Culme-Seymour participated in the Battle of Jutland. After the battle Roger Keyes took command and while aboard and acquired such a favourable impression that when Keyes was selecting men for the Raid on German-held Zeebrugge and Ostend, Crutchley was chosen. He was assigned by Keyes as First Lieutenant to Commander A. E. Godsal, also of the Centurion, on the second class cruiser HMS Brilliant.

Crutchley departed with the raiding force on 22 April 1918 to Ostend, where Brilliant was to be sunk as a blockship in conjunction with HMS Sirius, while Keyes conducted a similar operation at Zeebrugge. Due to the Germans having moved a navigation buoy more than a mile east, the Brilliant, Sirius and accompanying vessels went off course, beached in the wrong position and came under heavy artillery fire. For his service in this action, Crutchley was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

With the failure of the Ostend assault, he volunteered for a second attempt on blocking Zeebrugge on May 9. On board the cruiser HMS Vindictive, a survivor of the earlier attempt, Crutchley was forced to take command when Godsal was killed and the navigating officer incapacitated. Having been forced by heavy enemy fire to beach in the wrong position, Crutchley ordered the vessel scuttled, and personally oversaw the evacuation of the wounded and crew whilst under shell and machine-gun fire. Transferring to the damaged ML 254, Crutchley took command when its captain, Lieutenant Geoffrey Drummond collapsed due to wounds incurred in aiding Vindictive. Up to his waist in water, Crutchley oversaw the bailing out of the fore-end of the craft until aid in the form of the destroyer HMS Warwick, carrying Admiral Keyes, could be found.

Although the approaches to the U-Boat pens at Zeebrugge had failed to be blocked again, Crutchley for his performance in the action was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for valour. During the final months of the war Crutchley served on HMS Sikh in the Dover Patrol, the Channel force commanded by Keyes.

[edit] Inter war

After the war Crutchley spent a tour of duty on the minesweeper HMS Petersfield on the South American and South Atlantic station in 1920. A period was spent on the royal yacht HMY Alexandra in 1921, training on the cadet-training dreadnought HMS Thunderer in 1922–1924, the royal yacht HMY Victoria and Albert III (1924) and four years in the Mediterranean Fleet.

First on HMS Queen Elizabeth (1924–1926) and then on the light cruiser HMS Ceres (1926 1928), Crutchley again served under the command of Roger Keyes, now Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet from Malta. A polo player, Crutchley was invited to play for Keyes' polo team, the Centurions. So diverse was the social atmosphere at the fleet anchorage in Malta that at one point in 1927, Crutchley played on the same team as Keyes, the Duke of York and Louis Mountbatten. Crutchley was promoted commander in 1928. In 1930, he married Joan Elisabeth Loveday of Pentillie Castle, Cornwall, the sister of Air Chief Marshal Alec Coryton.

In August 1930 Crutchley joined HMS Diomede in the New Zealand Division and was seconded to that body until 1933. Serving as executive officer, Crutchley was present at the relief operation after the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, and towards the end of his tour, when the captain was chronincally ill, took command of the Diomede until promoted captain, and posted home in 1933. He was senior officer, 1st Minesweeper Flotilla (1st MSF) from 1935-1936 aboard the minseweeper HMS Halcyon at Portland, Dorset. In November, 1935 Crutchley took the 1st MSF to join the Mediterranean Fleet in Alexandria, and cruised to Famagusta, Cyprus for 10 days during the winter. On 16 April 1936 Crutchley was relieved by Captain W. P. C. Manwaring and promoted Captain, Fishery Protection and Minesweeping with overall command over the Royal Navy's Minesweeping and armed trawler fleet.

In May 1937 Crutchley took command of HMS Warspite, which two months earlier had completed a three year refit. Due to acceptance trials Warspite was not present at the Coronation Fleet Review of King George VI, and eventually proceeded to the Mediterranean Fleet to serve as the Flagship of Admiral Dudley Pound, Commander-in-Chief. Additional engineering work on the steering gear (which still suffered from damage taken at Jutland) and other equiment resulted in weekend leaves for the crew being curtailed, and to very low morale. Comments were made in the press in Britain which culminated in an anonymous letter from a crew member on the matter, resulting in an Inquiry by the Admiralty. The Inquiry led to the removal of three of Crutchley's officers, including his executive officer. Disagreeing with the findings of the Inquiry, he made sure that his executive officer's confidential report would lead to a promotion to captain.

Crutchley served as Flag Captain to first Pound and then to Admiral Andrew Cunningham up to the outbreak of war.

[edit] World War II

[edit] Early War

Map of Narvik and its environs.
Enlarge
Map of Narvik and its environs.

After the outbreak of war on 3 September 1940 Warspite was assigned to the Home Fleet. Due to the lack of anti-submarine precautions at the North Sea naval bases, it was some time before she reached Scapa Flow, the main fleet anchorage. Until the start of the Norwegian Campaign in April, 1940 action had been severely limited by the U-boat threat. A significant German naval presence in the North Sea saw the Home Fleet off the coast of Norway. After the inconclusive First Naval Battle of Narvik on 10 April, Crutchley flew the flag of Vice-Admiral William Whitworth and with nine destroyers entered the strategically important Ofotfjord of Narvik with the aim of eliminating the German force of 8 destroyers commanding the approaches to the harbour.

Before the coming battle, Warspite launched Fairey Swordfish L 9767 which located and sank U-64 in the Herjangsfjord; the first sinking of a U-Boat in World War II and the only instance where an aircraft launched from a battleship sank a U-Boat. Under fire from the German destroyers and German-controlled shore batteries, Crutchley took Warspite up Ofotfjord and with the destroyers sank 3 German destroyers. The remaining 5 enemy destroyers, out of ammunition and fuel, scuttled rather than be captured. Warspite's 15 in guns took a heavy toll on the German guns overlooking the fjord area, paving the way for the Allied retaking of the port.

After the action which became known as the "Second Battle of Narvik", Crutchley was appointed Commodore, Royal Naval Barracks, Devonport. After two years of this important service, preparing crews for assigning to ships, Crutchley was promoted Rear-Admiral and lent to the Royal Australian Navy for service in the critical Pacific Theatre. On 13 June 1942 Crutchley assumed command of Task Force 44 in the Coral Sea, succeeding Rear-Admiral John G. Crace. With the beginning of the Battle of Guadalcanal in August, Crutchley was given command of Task Force 62.2, the southern group of American cruisers and destroyers covering the landing force, commanding from HMAS Australia.

Upon the opening of hostilites with Japan, in June, 1942 Crutchley was seconded to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), succeeding Admiral Crace in command of a cruiser squadron based in Brisbane, Australia. In this position, Crutchley served as second-in-command to the American Admiral, Richmond K. Turner, during the Guadalcanal campaign in August 1942. Crutchley was criticized in the press for the U.S. and Australian losses during his command of Task Group 62.6 at the Battle of Savo Island, but retained the confidence of his superiors. Crutchley remained with the RAN in the South West Pacific Area commanding squadron now known as Task Force 74 (TF 74) for the rest of the war.

Following the war, Crutchley's final command was Flag Officer Gibraltar before his retirement in 1947. Crutchley enjoyed a long retirement and was one of the last surviving admirals from the Second World War at the time of his death in 1986 at the age of 92. In 1945 Crutchley had bought two paintings (Capriccio: The Lagoon, Venice and La Torre di Marghera) by the landscape artist Bernardo Bellotto; these were given to the nation in lieu of tax and presented to the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery in 1988.[1]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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