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Remembering Admiral Cunningham — The Great Insubordinate
Stick to your principles and disobey orders in style.
Andrew Cunningham (1883–1963) was a legendary admiral of the Royal Navy. A bust of Admiral Cunningham is permanently displayed in Trafalgar Square in London.
Cunningham is most famous for his role in the Mediterranean during the Second World War. With Italy as Germany’s ally, the Axis powers might well have expected to be able to dominate the Mediterranean Sea. Cunningham, however, with only sparse resources, helped mastermind a daring strategy for the Royal Navy to dominate the Mediterranean. It was a hard-fought battle, but through incredible daring and guile, the British gained and maintained the upper hand, resulting in the first major land-defeat of the Germans in the war.
The British Army’s Desert Rats had been fighting backwards and forwards with the famous Afrika Korps commanded by the Desert Fox himself — the greatly admired (by all sides) Erwin Rommel. Rommel was a brilliant tactician. His Panzer forces and tactics were far superior to those of the British. His men were superb soldiers — who, interestingly, appear to have engaged in (almost) none of the barbarous behaviour common among their countrymen in other battle zones.
Ultimately, however, they were defeated in the decisive battle of El Alamein by the British forces under Montgomery — the first major land defeat inflicted on the Nazi war machine. Their defeat was due to one primary factor — the Royal Navy. The Afrika Korps remained superior forces in many ways, but Montgomery’s supplies got through, whilst Rommel’s did not — they were lying at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, thanks to the superb seamanship, tactics and strategy of the Royal Navy under Admiral Cunningham.
Perhaps the most decisive blow in the Mediterranean was inflicted by the famous raid at Taranto. In one of the most daring, audacious and successful raids in history, Cunningham used seemingly outdated Swordfish biplanes, equipped with torpedoes and launched at night from the aircraft carrier Illustrious, to cripple the Italian Fleet at anchor in their fortress port of Taranto.
The Swordfish planes flew through a hail of gunfire and delivered their torpedoes with inhuman…
