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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.
