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First Lord of the Admiralty - 1921-1945

The First Lord of the Admiralty was the political head of the Royal Navy and acted as the government's advisor on naval affairs. Possibly one of the earliest permanent government posts (as opposed to being part of the monarch's household), the holder was the political head of the Royal Navy by virtue of being the President of the Board of Commissioners for Exercising the Office of Lord High Admiral (the Admiralty Board). The post was always part of the Cabinet. From the early 1800s the post was held by a civilian (previously officers of the Royal Navy had also been able to occupy the post). The post of First Lord of the Admiralty was abolished when the Admiralty, War Office, Ministry of Defence and Air Ministry were merged to form the new Ministry of Defence in 1964.

By September 1939 the worst British re-armament deficiencies had been rectified. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had safely arrived in France and the RAF began carrying out leaflet raids on German towns.

For the Navy the war was real from the outset. On the first day the Donaldson Liner 'Athenia' was torpedoed without warning. Quickly dispatched convoys shepherded merchant vessels across the danger zone, but a German submarine managed to penetrate the Royal Navy's wartime base and the battleship 'Royal Oak' was sunk with heavy loss of life.

The German pocket battleships 'Graf Spee' and 'Admiral Scheer' were discovered at sea preying on Allied shipping. The Royal Navy cornered the Graf Spee off the River Plate. The German vessel fled to neutral waters where the Captain scuttled his ship. The Admiral Scheer also escaped capture yet despite this, it was largely due to British naval supremacy that invasion of Britain was still considered unlikely.

While the Blitz raged, German aircraft and U-boats caused heavy losses of merchant shipping in the north-western approaches to Britain. By March 1941 the situation was seen as so severe that Churchill issued his 'Battle of the Atlantic Directive' and directed all government attention towards the Atlantic.

In May 1941 in the Denmark Straits, the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen destroyed HMS Hood (the pride of the Royal Navy) with a massive magazine explosion, and escaped. Three days later the Royal Navy sunk the Bismarck while it was attempting to reach the safety of Brest. The Battle of the Atlantic continued.

The first few months of 1942 were disastrous for Britain at sea. The entry of America into the war allowed the Germans rapidly to redeploy their U-boats from the North Atlantic convoy routes to American waters. They found that the ships the British had painfully escorted across the Atlantic to Halifax (the 'Sydney' and 'Nova Scotia') were completely undefended by the Americans.

The Germans then pulled off a propaganda coup by withdrawing their capital ships from Brest through the English Channel to Germany. Uncoordinated and frantic British naval and air attacks followed but the German ships were not sunk.

From mid-1942 to May 1943 the fighting in the Atlantic was savage. The Allies made excellent use of intelligence and introduced new weapons and sensors - especially anti-submarine aircraft. The result was defeat for the U-boats. In late May 1943 after heavy losses, the Germans withdrew from the Atlantic and lost their advantage. Allied sea communications were now secure and preparations for the liberation of France went ahead.