Admiral Sir Jonathon Band’s very topical talk entitled The Special Relationship – At risk from Trump? started with a reminder that the term was coined by Winston Churchill in a 1946 speech at Fulton, Missouri. Apart from a blip over Suez the relationship has remained strong over the intervening seventy years. It has given Britain an inside track to submarine nuclear propulsion and then to the Resolution, Vanguard and (future) Dreadnought classes which provide our continuous at-sea deterrent. The special relationship remains strong in the nuclear and intelligence fields.
But
It would be foolish to ignore the way the current administration has reoriented US strategic focus, diluted the separation of powers, adopted a fetish about balance of trade, undermined assumptions about security guarantees, and abandoned diplomatic language and conventions. It is therefore crucial to encourage American understanding that NATO is vital to US security and financial interests.
His thought-provoking views prompted a lively question-and-answer session which could have continued all afternoon but for the tyranny of the clock.
Admiral Band’s command experience ranges from fishery protection duties in the minesweeper HMS Soberton to his final seagoing appointment in the carrier HMS Illustrious. An equally illustrious later career culminated in promotion to First Sea Lord. In this role, which he filled from 2006-2009, he oversaw the
Afghanistan campaign and the signing of the Future Carrier contract. He has since acted as Chair of Trustees of the National Museum of the Royal Navy and is now a Director of Carnival Corporation and Carnival PLC. He is also the President of the Royal Navy and Royal Marine Charity; a Vice Patron of UK Blind Veterans; and President of the 1805 Historical Club, a Patron of the MTB 102 Trust and Southsea Association; a Liveryman and Court Member of the Shipwrights Company; and a Younger Brother of Trinity House.
Mark Brady followed with The Losses of HMS Curacao (October 1942) and HMS Eden (June 1916). It is well-known that the light cruiser Curacao was sunk by the liner Queen Mary, the ship she was escorting. Mark clearly explained the circumstances of the disaster with the aid of diagrams.
Queen Mary was approaching the Clyde at speed and zig-zagging. Curacao could not match her manoeuvres so maintained a steady course on her starboard flank. Unfortunately, Curacao’s captain mistook both Queen Mary’s zig-zag intentions and each ship’s understanding of its own priority regarding the other.
The loss of the destroyer HMS Eden in June 1916 is less famous. A common factor is that Eden was also cut in half (with resultant heavy loss of life) by a large ocean liner (SS France) which she was escorting.
Mark’s talk then focussed on the sinking of HMS Eden. First because the short account in David Hepper’s ‘British Warship Losses in the Ironclad Era, 1860-1919’ is inaccurate in important respects; second because he has a ‘family interest’ – his maternal grandfather was a survivor from Eden’s Ship’s Company, though it was ‘a close-run business’. By careful study of the available evidence Mark was able to demonstrate that the steering difficulties suffered by SS France caused her unknowingly to perform a gentle turn to starboard, placing Eden on her port bow instead of, as she believed, to starboard. (Remember it was pitch dark and both ships were blacked out). When Eden spotted another ship on reciprocal course the captain correctly, as he believed, ordered an emergency turn to starboard. By the time the bows of France loomed over her it was too late for either ship to do anything about it.
We look forward to Mark’s paper which will set out his revision of the accepted narrative in detail.
Mark joined Dartmouth in September 1968 and retired from the Service at the end of 2002. He joined as a Seaman Officer, Executive Branch and went on to become a Warfare Officer, completing all sorts of stuff within Naval intelligence.
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