#esp2018

by Christopher Mathews (Háskólinn í Reykjavík / Reykjavík University), ESP1 2018

Fresh from our visit to Dunkirk and on the eve of the Normandy trip, it’s interesting to look back at the career of a person instrumental to the Allied success in both operations: the “forgotten hero” of World War II, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay. 

Born in 1883, Ramsay joined the Royal Navy at the age of 16.  He served on the first true battleship, HMS Dreadnought, and during World War I commanded a smaller combat vessel, the destroyer HMS Broke.  During the interwar years, he chose an unusual career path for a naval officer: rather than focusing on weapons or tactics, he became an expert in logistics – the movement of men and materiel.  He retired in 1938 but returned to duty in the following year to lead the defense of Dover.   

His return proved to be a remarkable stroke of good fortune when he took charge of Operation DYNAMO, the evacuation of the forces at Dunkirk.  His expertise in logistics was a key the Allied success, as the British hastily assembled a flotilla of hundreds of fishing boats, yachts, and tugboats to take part in the operation.  Over 338,000 soldiers were rescued, including over 100,000 French troops.   

After Dunkirk, Ramsay joined the planning teams assembled by General Dwight Eisenhower for the Allied invasion of North Africa in 1942 and Sicily in 1943.  In 1944, Eisenhower turned to Ramsay to lead Operation NEPTUNE, the naval component of the invasion of France. 

Delivering the American, British, and Canadian armies to Normandy proved to be the most complex naval operation of all time.  On D-Day, Ramsay commanded nearly 7,000 vessels, the largest fleet ever assembled.  Historians have called the invasion a “never surpassed masterpiece” of naval operations, and had it failed, the war might well have dragged on for years at an unimaginable cost in lives. 

Ramsay may also have saved two very prominent lives from their own folly.  Before the invasion, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided that he would observe the D-Day landings from one of Ramsay’s shore bombardment vessels, a ship certain to be a target for German artillery and air attacks.  Not to be outdone, King George VI announced that he would be on hand, too … until Ramsay told them both that they were not welcome on his ship.  The Prime Minister and King remained ashore. 

As the architect of two of the most important naval operations of the war, Admiral Ramsay might well have become a legendary figure: he led the Allies out of France, and led them back in.  Unfortunately, he was killed in an air crash while enroute to a meeting with General Montgomery in January 1945 – and so never got to see the victory in Europe he had done so much to secure.