Henry Harwood is best known for his destruction of the _Admiral
Graf Spee_ at the battle of the River Plate in December 1939 about
which Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, said:
'This brilliant sea fight takes its place in our naval annals and
in a long, cold, dark winter it warmed the cockles of the British
hearts'. Despite that great victory Harwood remains, until now, one
of three great British naval commanders of the Second World War who
is without a biography. Admiral Sir Henry Harwood's wider naval
career was remarkable and epitomised the Royal Navy in the first
half of the twentieth century. He became a naval cadet in 1903,
specialised as a torpedo officer in 1911, and for his services in
the First World War was awarded the OBE in 1919. He was one of the
Navy's intellectuals, gaining first class passes in all his
examinations and, during his interwar service on the South American
station, learning Spanish. During his service in important staff
appointments and at the Imperial Defence College, he made a
particular study of international relations and, in the light of
perceived fallings at sea in the First World War, of tactics and
command. He was thus well-qualified when in 1936 he became
commodore in command of the South American division of the America
and West Indies station, and well prepared to meet and defeat the
German pocket battleship _Admiral Graf Spee_ with his inferior
force of cruisers in 1939. He was promoted assistant chief of the
naval staff at the Admiralty, and, in 1942, appointed
Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean, in succession to Sir Andrew
Cunningham. Then, commanding a fleet too enfeebled for its tasks,
he found Montgomery plotting against him and Churchill loosing
confidence in him before being relieved of his command. Invalided
out of the Navy in 1945, and subsequently blamed by many for the
Navy's perceived failings in the Mediterranean, he died a
disappointed man in 1950. The author has been given exclusive and
unique access to the Harwood family archives and, in the light of
these previously unpublished papers, has set about rehabilitating
the character, career and achievements of this great British
admiral. For all historians and enthusiasts of the Royal Navy in
the Second World War, this will be essential reading.
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