Victor Crutchley, Hero of Savo Island (Part 1)
Beginnings
Victor Crutchley is born on 2 November 1893 at 28 Lennox Gardens, Chelsea, London, the only son of Percy Edward (1855–1940) and the Honorable Frederica Louisa (1864–1932), second daughter of Charles FitzRoy, 3rd Baron Southampton. His mother had been maid of honour to Queen Victoria. He is a godchild of Queen Victoria (from whom he derives his first two names). He joins the Royal Navy in 1906. He receives his naval education at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, Isle of Wright, England.
Pre-World War I*, he has a fairly average, but favored career path upward from ensign to junior LT by the outbreak of the first world war. Even for the godson of Queen Victoria, the career advancement for him is glacial by any standards.
World War I
In September 1915 Crutchley was promoted to LT(s.g.). He is posted to a battleship of the Grand Fleet, HMS
Centurion. HMS
Centurion participates in the Battle of Jutland and does fairly well. After that Beatty botched battle Roger Keyes assumes command of HMS
Centurion and acquired a highly favorable impression of
Crutchley. Keyes selects Crutchley for the insane Zeebrugge Raid of 23 April 1918; Keyes assigns Crutchley 1st LT to CDR Alfred E.
Godsal, also of HMS
Centurion, on the obsolete cruiser HMS
Brilliant.
HMS
Brilliant and HMS
Sirius are to be sunk as blockships at Ostend to block the German channel forces inside their main bases. The Germans nix the RN plan by the simple expedient of moving a navigation buoy, so the British ships, because apparently nobody assigned to the mission has examined or has access to proper charts or can freaking navigate an unknown port by simple chain soundings (MARK TWAIN, all is well. Channel deep and straight ahead.) places the HMS
Brilliant and HMS
Sirius in the wrong place under heavy fire. But despite this problem, Crutchley adapts well to the utter catastrophe and earns the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroics.
Try again. Crutchley volunteers, yet again, for the Second Ostend Raid on 9 May. He is posted to the cruiser HMS
Vindictive, again commanded by the apparently luckless and incompetent Godsal. When Godsal dies in action and the navigating officer becomes ineffective to shock; Crutchley assumes
command and manages to steer the HMS
Vindictive into the proper channel. When a screw snaps off a blade on the sunken stone quay, and causes a vibration casualty which prevents the vessel fully closing the canal, Crutchley orders its scuttling in place and personally oversees the HMS
Vindictive’s crew’s evacuation under fire.
Crutchley shifts to the damaged motor launch
ML 254. When its wounded captain, LT Geoffrey Drummond succumbs to loss of blood and passes out, Crutchley seizes command. Crutchley orders fatuous failing bucket-bailing Chinese fire drill type operations, standing in water up to his waist, until the destroyer HMS
Warwick, carrying Admiral
Keyes, comes alongside and saves everybody aboard. Net total result? Same as the first Ostend Raid, it is a complete fiasco.
Although the second raid fails fully to close the Bruges Canal to submarine traffic, Crutchley, Drummond, and Bourke earn Victoria Crosses for the action. When there are more worthy recipients than VCs to award, the men are allowed to elect those to receive a VC. Crutchley is one of the last elected VCs from this complete disaster.
During the final months of the war, Crutchley serves on HMS
Sikh in the Dover Patrol, the Channel force commanded by Keyes. This service is uneventful.
Inter War
In 1920, LT Crutchley serves a tour of duty on board the minesweeper, HMS
Petersfield on the South American and South Atlantic station. He then serves on the royal yacht
Alexandra in 1921, the cadet-training dreadnought HMS
Thunderer in 1922–1924, and the royal yacht,
Victoria and Albert III, in 1924.
In 1924 he went to the Mediterranean Fleet for four years, serving under Roger Keyes (Remember him?), now Commander-in-Chief at Malta. Crutchley is aboard HMS
Queen Elizabeth in 1924–1926, and then on the light cruiser HMS
Ceres in 1926-1928.
Crutchley is a world class polo player, and he is invited to play for Keyes' polo team, the “Centurions”. At one point in 1927, Crutchley plays on the same team as Keyes, the Duke of York, and Louis Mountbatten. Is it any wonder that Crutchley becomes a full commander in 1928. In 1930, he marries Joan Elisabeth Loveday of Pentillie Castle, Cornwall, the sister of Air Chief Marshal (ACM) Alec Coryton.
In August 1930, Crutchley signs on to
HMS Diomede in the New Zealand Division, beginning his long association with the ANZAC navies. He serves aboard HMS
Diomede until 1933. Serving as executive officer, Crutchley is present at the relief operation after the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, and towards the end of his tour, when the captain takes chronically ill (malaria and diabetes), Crutchley, following his usual pattern, assumes command of
HMS Diomede, without prior authorization or approval, until he is ex-post facto promoted to captain. He is recalled shortly thereafter in 1933 (Politics.). Crutchley Is parked as senior officer, 1st Minesweeper Flotilla (1st MSF) from 1935-1936 aboard the minesweeper HMS
Halcyon at Portland, Dorset. (This experience will have tremendous repercussions for the Battle of Savo Island . McPherson.) In November, 1935 Crutchley leads the 1st MSF to join the Mediterranean Fleet in Alexandria, and cruises to Famagusta, Cyprus for 10 days during the winter on fleet exercises where he runs HMS
Halcyon aground, nearly sinking her. He is not censured for this incident. (Pull.). On 16 April 1936, Crutchley is relieved by CPT W. P. C. Manwaring and he is made Captain (s.g.) (Whatever that is? McPherson.), of the Fishery Protection and Minesweeping Service with overall command over the Royal Navy's Minesweeping and armed trawler fleet. Apparently someone thinks he can chase off Icelanders who violate British fishery grounds and is somewhat competent at mine warfare.
On 1 May 1937, Crutchley takes command of HMS
Warspite, which has been completely and incompetently refitted, (See remark about the steering gear in short order. McPherson.), in three years at Portsmouth. Due to delayed acceptance trials HMS
Warspite cannot be present at the Coronation Fleet Review of King George VI. Additional engineering work on the steering gear (Which has not been repaired from damage inflicted by CADM Hipper’s battle cruisers, taken at Jutland. McPherson) and other equipment (The 5.25 inch guns give nothing but trouble. McPherson) results in weekend leaves for the crew being curtailed, leading to very low morale. Comments appear in British newspapers, which culminate in an anonymous letter from a crew member. This provokes an inquiry into Crutchley, by the Admiralty. The inquiry leads to the removal of three of Crutchley's officers, including his executive officer. Crutchley disagrees with the findings of the Inquiry, and makes sure that the confidential report on his executive officer leads to the latter’s promotion to captain (Political expediency and that PULL again; to shut the chap up about Crutchley’s own part in the HMS
Warspite problem. McPherson.). Based on later USN observations of this fellow, Crutchley, he will be deemed a decent leader of men, technologically incompetent by USN standards, and something of a charge at them without thinking admiral. He will get along famously with VADM Halsey. With RADM Turner, it is like gasoline and a match. One thing both the RN and US navies miss, is that Crutchley actually knows how to fight a naval battle. Cannot plan one to save his life, but if someone else gives him a GOOD plan, he can execute it well.
Regarding HMS
Warspite; she eventually steams to the Mediterranean Fleet to serve as the flagship of ADM Dudley Pound, Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean Station. Crutchley serves as Flag Captain to first Pound and then to ADM Andrew Cunningham up to the outbreak of war. During this sinecure, he manages not to screw up the staff-work too grossly, but it is honest to suggest that it is a far happier Mediterranean Fleet when he returns to England at the outbreak of WW II.