1943 British Adm. Sir Andrew Cunningham is appointed First Sea Lord of the Admiralty and Chief of the Naval Staff (1943-1946)
An aside on ABC:
The Night the War Ended
Although a pacifist, during World War II, Nicholas Monsarrat (1910-1979), a promising young novelist, decided to do his bit to defeat Hitler. Being an avid yachtsman, he promptly joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.
Commissioned a sub-lieutenant, Monsarrat saw service in corvettes during the most desperate days of the Battle of the Atlantic. Proving a capable officer, he was promoted with unusual speed for a temporary reservist. By war’s end, having commanded successively a corvette, a frigate, and an escort group, and helped conduct numerous convoys across the ocean, he had risen to captain, and was serving on the staff of the Admiralty in London.
With the formal surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945, a carnival atmosphere quickly developed in London. By chance, Monsarrat was the Duty Captain in the Admiralty that night, assigned to stand watch in the command center. He arrived at the Admiralty at 9:00 p.m., by which time perhaps a million happy people were crowded into central London. From his post, Monsarrat could hear the cheers and singing of the crowds outside the historic Admiralty building, which had seen many a similar crowd celebrating Britain’s victories since it had been completed in 1726. As he would later write, “On a guilty impulse I deserted my post” to take in the scene. He made his way to the top of the great stone arch which marks the formal entrance to the Admiralty.
From the top of Admiralty Arch, Monsarrat could see an enormous host of people cheering and singing, from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square and, most astonishing of all, a city in lights for the first time since blackouts had begun, nearly six years earlier.
But then he noticed something else, which he described in his memoirs.
Then, on a half-turn, I became aware that I was not alone, on top of the Admiralty Arch.
There was someone standing within five yards of me, also staring down at the crowds, and oblivious of close company for the same reason as I had been—because we were both entranced by the magnet of what was going on below. With that perceptible twinge of nervousness which had been built into my life for so many years, I recognized, first the rank and then the man.
The massive display of gold braid told me that he was an admiral, like his brave and lonely brother on top of the column [Nelson]. Then I realized that this was a very superior admiral indeed. I counted one thick band of gold, and four thinner ones. He was an Admiral of the Fleet-the highest any sailor could go.
In fact, I suddenly recognized, he was the Admiral of the Fleet. The man in my company was the First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Cunningham.
Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Browne Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, Bt, KT, GCB, OM, DSO (1883-1964), the most distinguished British sea-dog since Nelson, had joined the Navy at 15 in 1898, and been in the service for 47 years, seeing action in destroyers during World War I, at Gallipoli, on the Dover Patrol, and elsewhere, and then risen steadily in the years of peace, and then, during the first half of World War II had put in a masterful performance as Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, before being named First Sea Lord.
Monsarrat took his discharge from the Royal Navy in 1946, For some years he served in the diplomatic corps, but then retired to become a full-time writer, and produced a steady stream of novels and short stories, most notably the brilliant The Cruel Sea, many of them based on his experiences in the war.
Note: Nicholas Monsarrat’s memoirs, published in the U.S. in one volume, BREAKING IN- BREAKING OUT AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY NICHOLAS MONSARRAT (New York: Morrow, 1971) has a detailed account of his wartime service. Much of this experience was used in his best novel, which remains in print, The Cruel Sea (Springfield, N.J.: Burford Books, 2000), which was made into a superior film in 1953, The Cruel Sea , starring Jack Hawkins.