"Admiral Sir William O’Brien, who has died aged 99, was one of the most charismatic and best-loved admirals of his age. In 1940 O’Brien took part in two operations which were products of the restlessly aggressive mind of Winston Churchill. The first, in the summer, was Operation Royal Marine (although no marines participated) to mine the Rhine, Meuse, Moselle and Seine, and disrupt river traffic by blowing up barges and bridges. O’Brien travelled to the front with a trainload of mines and British matelots, but the French prevaricated and the operation did not commence until the German Blitzkrieg had started. O’Brien fell back slowly, sowing mines and improvising tank traps, often while under machine-gun fire. As he retreated he was saddened to witness the demoralisation and collapse of the French nation, and shocked by the German air attacks on the columns of refugees. He launched his remaining mines when he reached the Seine, and only avoided being overrun and taken prisoner when he succeeded in blowing up a bridge, which temporarily halted the German advance. On June 19 O’Brien reached St Malo, where he boarded the Duke of Westminster’s yacht Cutty Sark to return to Britain with, remarkably, few losses to his sailors. He recalled: “We should all have been most depressed at this moment … yet the mood I sensed in others and certainly felt myself, was, 'Now we can get on with it on our own’.” The next operation, in the autumn, was called Lucid, another Churchillian scheme to set fire to German invasion barges at Boulogne by sending a tanker loaded with fuel and bombs into the harbour. Twice O’Brien, who was first lieutenant of the destroyer Witherington at the time, set off in a patrol boat in a cloud of fumes from the overburdened tanker, and twice the operation was called off because the wind was offshore. In 1941 O’Brien became first lieutenant of the destroyer Offa, a happy ship commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Alastair Ewing, on escort duty with convoys to Russia. As so often in the Arctic the weather was the worst enemy and once Offa was hove-to for three days in a hurricane off the North Cape. Nevertheless, on Boxing Day Offa sailed for a raid on the German-occupied Norwegian Vaagso Island, her target the German patrol ship Donner, which was boarded and from which a “pinch” (capture) of cryptographic material was taken. In the summer of 1942 political necessity overcame military prudence and the Arctic convoys continued, despite the 24 hours of daylight, which helped the enemy to coordinate and concentrate attacks. Offa was part of the close escort to the infamous Convoy PQ17 at the time when, misled by false intelligence and fearing an attack by the German battleship Tirpitz, on July 4 the Admiralty ordered the escort to withdraw and the convoy to scatter. The signalled orders were received with disbelief. In Offa O’Brien and his captain were dumbfounded. On the bridge the officers debated staging an artificial breakdown, dropping back from the other escorts until they were out of sight, and rejoining the convoy. They nearly did this, and would probably not have survived, but in O’Brien’s opinion they would not have been dishonoured. So began the disgrace of Convoy PQ17 when the warships abandoned the merchant ships to their fate: 24 of the 35 merchantmen were lost. O’Brien retained a personal sense of shame throughout his life. Convoys were suspended until the nights began to draw in and PQ18 in September was strongly defended and fought bitterly against even greater enemy forces. None the less, when O’Brien was awarded the DSC for gallantry, skill and resolution while escorting an important convoy to North Russia in the face of relentless attack by enemy aircraft and submarines, he felt unworthy. The son of a major in the Connaught Rangers, William Donough O’Brien was born on November 13 1916 at Faversham, Kent, and brought up by his mother, the daughter of a Maltese judge, after she was widowed in 1918. In 1930 William went to Dartmouth where he became a Cadet Captain and gained four months’ seniority for doing well. He then gained a first class pass in every exam while under training in the fleet. O’Brien served in battleships and destroyers in the Mediterranean Fleet, beginning a long acquaintanceship with Malta and its people. His first command was a lorry-mounted gun during the Arab revolt in Palestine in 1936, when he relished the title given to him as a humble midshipman by the colonel of the Lincolnshire Regiment, “Senior Naval Officer Tulkarm”. In 1938-39 he was navigating officer of the destroyer Garland during the Spanish Civil War, but on the outbreak of war Garland was badly damaged by the inadvertent explosion of one of her own depth charges, caused in O’Brien’s opinion by poor leadership and lack of professionalism. Next, in the destroyer Witherington, O’Brien escorted Atlantic and East Coast convoys, and was in Portsmouth during the Blitz on March 11 1941 when three bombs passed through the ship and one exploded on the seabed; only O’Brien’s quick reactions and initiative saved her from sinking." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/12178099/Admiral-Sir-William-OBrien-obituary.html
sounds like fire ships of the sailing days....also, maybe like some crazy operations of modern times!
Quite a story and quite a man! i do have to quibble with the "probably not have survived" comment re PQ17. While the destroyers were withdrawn, the rest of the escort - two AA ships, four corvettes, three minesweepers, and four trawlers - continued on to Russia without receiving a hit or a casualty. Some like the trawler Ayrshire tried to protect the scattered merchant ships, others just looked after themselves. The senior officers in the AA ships Palomares and Pozarica each collected a couple of anti-submarine escorts to make a nice, self-protecting unit. Eventually the escorts and a few surviving merchants collected in Novaya Zemlya and made a dash for Arkhangel. When the destroyers and the cruiser covering force were ordered to retire westward, they were under the impression that they might be facing a desperate battle, possibly against the Tirpitz. This was the occasion on which Jacky Broome, the escort commander, exchanged signals with one of the two submarines attached to PQ17: Sub: I will try to stay on the surface as long as possible. HMS Keppel: So will I. The six destroyers included two Hunt II class, without torpedos, and the ex-US flush-decker Leamington which had little to contribute to a surface battle and might have done better to stay with the merchants.
