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Augustus Agar

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Commodore Augustus Willington Shelton Agar (1890-1968) VC DSO was a noted Royal Navy officer and an Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Victoria Cross

He was 29 years old, and a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy during the North Russia Relief Force when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.

On 17 June 1919 at Kronstadt, Russia, Lieutenant Agar took HM Coastal Motor Boat 4 into the bay, penetrated a destroyer screen and was closing a larger warship further inshore when CMB4, whose hull had been damaged by gunfire, broke down. She had to be taken alongside a breakwater to do repairs and for 20 minutes was in full view of the enemy. The attack was then resumed and a Russian cruiser, the Oleg, was sunk, after which Lieutenant Agar retired to the safety of the open bay under heavy fire.

Early Life

Augustus Agar was born in Kandy, Ceylon on January 4, 1890. He was the thirteenth child of an Irishman from County Kerry who had left his native land in 1860 to become a successful tea planter in Ceylon. Agar's mother died shortly after his birth and at the age of eight he was sent with one of his brothers to school in England. Soon after his father died when he contracted cholera during a visit to China.

Augustus (Gus) Agar attended Framlingham College in Suffolk, England. He was now without parents or a fixed home and his oldest brother, Shelton, determined that he should go into the Navy. Gus, who idolized his older brother, willingly agreed.

A friend of the family, Sir Henry Jackson, later an admiral and First Sea Lord, nominated Agar for a spot in the annual intake of cadets. After time spent with a "crammer", he passed the entrance exams and in 1904 joined the naval cadet school, HMS Britannia, at Dartmouth, England. The Britannia was a wooden man of war launched in 1820, but long since tied up at Dartmouth and used as a stationary training ship.

As a part of his training, Agar went to sea in the 5,650 ton second class cruiser, HMS Highflyer, and afterwards on the slightly older HMS Isis. These ships were stationed at Bermuda and many classes were held ashore when the ships were in port. Agar had many pleasant memories of sports, swimming, boating and picnics during this period.

Agar served at sea in a number of ships in the prewar period, including the battleships HMS Prince of Wales attached to the Mediterranean Fleet, and HMS Queen with Captain (later Admiral) Sir David Beatty in command. He greatly admired the dash and style of Beatty.

Agar's early training gave him a thoruogh grounding in basic naval matters, especially in handling small boats. This was to prove a great asset later in his career. In 1910 Gus passed his seamanship examination with flying colours and was made an acting Sub Lieutenant. He spent the next three years on course at Portsmouth and studying at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, England.

After his courses were complete, Agar was assigned to small ships, his first being Torpedo Boat # 23. In April 1913 he was sent to learn to fly. It was not entirely his metier, though he obtained his license after enduring three crashes in the very primitive aircraft of the time. He joined the pre-dreadnought battleship, HMS Hibernia, in September, 1913, attached to the Home Fleet.

During this period, Agar became a gunnery expert, a skill important in his later career.

Character

In his naval biography, Footprints in the Sea, published in 1961, Agar described himself as "...highly strung and imaginative...". To this must be added courageous, determined and calm in a crisis. He was held in high regard by many of the men who served under him.

World War One: The Grand Fleet

Agar was aboard the Hibernia when World War One broke out and soon sailed with her to Britain's then secret war time base at Scapa Flow. He was a part of the Grand Fleet under the command of Admiral Sir John Jellicoe.

As more newer and faster dreadnoughts joined the fleet, the pre-dreadnoughts became increasingly obsolete, being slower, with much less firepower and a poor design. Hibernia and her sisters of the King Edward VII class battleships had their secondary 6" guns placed too low in the water, where they were liable to be submerged in all but the calmest waters.

The Dardanelles and Guard Duty

In the summer of 1915 it was decided to send Hibernia out to the Dardanelles to provide gunnery support to the Allied landings on the Gallipoli peninsula. She arrived in September 1915 at the Royal Navy base at Mudros on the Greek island of Lemnos at the entrance to the Straits leading to the Black Sea.

The sheltered waters of the Aegean Sea and the straits enabled Hibernia to use all her guns and she was employed in firing at Turkish targets on Gallopoli and the nearby Asia Minor shore. She was hit once by a Turkish shell, but not seriously damaged.

Hibernia returned to Britain when the Allies evacuated Gallipoli and was stationed at Rosyth with others of her class to guard against raids on the British coast by German ships. Because of their slow speed and weak offensive power, the pre-dreadnought battleships were not ordered to join the Grand Fleet for the Battle of Jutland on May 31 1916, though they stood to with steam up pending the outcome of the engagement.

North Russia

After Jutland the battleship threat from Germany receeded somewhat and the danger from mines and submarines grew. Among the most vulnerable points were the two ports of Murmansk and Archangel in North Russia used by British merchant ships bringing war materials to their ally. Mine sweeping trawlers were sent out to counter this threat and two old cruisers were modified to act as repair workshops and headquarters for this flotilla. Agar joined one of them, HMS Iphigenia, in December 1916, as executive officer.


Iphigenia arrived at Murmansk in March 1917, just as the Russian Revolution was beginning. She operated out of Archangel in the summer when the White Sea was clear and from the ice free Murmansk in the winter. Although it was apparent to local Allied commanders that the war material landed after the spring of 1917 was not being put to good use, their advice to stop the flow was ignored by Whitehall. Indeed most of the supplies were either destroyed or ended up being used by the Bolsheviks or being captured by the Germans.

This difficult and occasionally dangerous mission occupied the Iphigenia until the end of February 1918, when worsening conditions and a hostile Bolshevik government prompted a withdrawal. The British were able to take away with them a number of Russians fleeing the Bolsheviks.

The Russian experience was of value to Agar later in his career.

Coastal Motor Boats

Agar served in Coastal Motor Boats (CMB's) in home waters during the latter part of the war. These small vessels displaced just 5 tons compared to the 1,110 tons of a World War One era destroyer. Their main offensive weapon was a torpedo. They were of shallow draught and could operate close inshore.

The Baltic and the Bolsheviks

The end of the war found him at the CMB base at Osea Island in Essex, England. He was asked in late 1918 by Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming, head of the foreign section of the British [[Secret Intelligence Service, to volunteer for a dangerous mission in the Baltic Sea where his CMB was to be used to ferry messages back and forth from British agents in Bolshevik Russia. The shallow draught and high speed of his CMB made it ideal for landing on enemy occupied shores and making a quick getaway. The chief British agents in Russia were Sir Paul Dukes and Sidney Reilly. During this time Agar and his two boats were technically under the command of the Foreign Office.

Agar set up a small base at Terrioki just inside Finland, close to the Soviet frontier. From here he undertook secret missions to drop off and retreive British agents on the coast of the Bay of Petrograd. To do this his boats had to cross Bolshevik minefields and pass by a number of forts guarding the entrance to the chief Bolshevik naval base at Kronstadt and to Petrograd, now St. Petersburg.

Also operating in the eastern Baltic Sea was a Royal Navy detatchment of light cruisers and destroyers under Admiral Sir Walter Cowan. Though technically not connected, Agar regularly reported to Cowan and received assistance from him.

On their missions Agar and his crews dressed in civilian clothes, to maintain the fiction that Britain was not involved. They had a uniform on board in case they were in danger of capture. Without a uniform they could be shot as spies, though the uniform may not have made much difference.

Agar was a man with a lot of initiative and felt they should be doing more than acting as a shuttle. The Bolsheviks had seized much of the Russian fleet at the base of Kronstadt on an island near St. Petersburg. He felt these vessels were a menace to British operations and took it upon himself to attack the enemy battleships. He set out with his two boats on June 17, 1919. One had to turn back before completing its mission.

The battleships were not in the harbour, and Agar led his tiny boat amid heavy fire, to torpedo the Bolshevik 6,645 ton cruiser Oleg. She sank. For this he was awarded the V.C.

Realizing the utility of the C.M.B.'s, Cowan ordered a number more sent out from England to add to his fleet.

On August 18, 1919 Agar led his remaining boat against the Russians, acting as guideship to a flotilla of six others, leading them through the minefields and forts. They entered Kronstadt harbour, this time sinking two battleships, the 23,360 ton dreadnought Petropavlovsk and the 17,400 ton pre-dreadnought Andrei Pervoswanni, and a submarine depot ship, the 6,734 ton Pamiat Azova. For this service he was awarded the DSO.

The British naval presence in the Baltic was crucial to securing the independence of the three Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as otherwise the Bolsheviks would have been able to institute a naval blockade of these fledgling nations and cut off their supply of weapons and ammunition.

Between the Wars

Agar held a number of sea going commands between the wars. His first, in June 1920 was as executive officer aboard HMS Chatham, a 5,400 ton light cruiser assigned to the newly formed New Zealand Navy. In 1922 he was given command of HMS Philomel, an obsolete cruiser of 2,575 tons used as a training ship for the New Zealand Navy. These were very happy years for Agar, in a friendly country with interesting work and regular cruises through the South Seas.

Then Agar , the the request of King George V was appointed to the Royal Yacht HMS Victoria and Albert for two years, 1924-25, another pleasant duty.

A great professional assignment was in command of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet. The commander, Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, specifically asked for Agar. Keyes was an outstanding leader and brought the fleet to the height of its efficiency. The Flotilla consisted of four ships, and Agar commanded the flotilla leader HMS Witch.

After these assignments, Agar was on course and on shore duty for several years, including a stint as naval advisor to the New Zealand Delegation to the London Naval Conference of 1930.

Seagoing command followed, first aboard the 4,190 ton anti aircraft cruiser HMS Curlew and then aboard his favoutite ship, the 7,300 ton light cruiser HMS Emerald, at 35 knots, with her sister , HMS Enterprise, the fastest ship in the Royal Navy.

World War Two: Early Years

Agar was in charge of planning Operation Lucid in September 1940, an attempt to hit the German wooden invasion barges at Boulogne, France with incendiary material and set them alight. He set off on October 7, 1940 with two tankers and various auxiliary vessels. Unfortunately, the command ship hit a mine mid Channel and the force had to return.

Augustus Agar was appointed captain of HMS Dorsetshire early in the war. She did escort duty, including guarding the convoy taking British gold reserves to Canada. On January 18, 1941 she captured the Vichy French merchant ship Mendoza off West Africa and escorted her into Takoradi.

Sinking the Bismarck

Agar commanded the Dorsetshire during the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in May of 1941. She was on duty escorting northbound Convoy SL 74 off West Africa when she was detatched and ordered north to assist with the hunt.

Dorsetshire joined HMS Rodney and HMS King George V for the final showdown with Bismark. Along with the King George V she attacked from the south. She contributed gunfire support and after the Bismarck was crippled and ceased fire and the British battleships and destroyers left because of low fuel, Dorsetshire finished her off with three torpedos.

The Dorsetshire rescued 115 of the German ship's crew. Reports of enemy submarines and possible attacks from German shore based aircraft from France prompted her to break off before completing her search.

Italian Colonies and Raiders

In early November 1941, the Dorsetshire bombarded positions in Italian Somaliland.


On November 21, 1941 she participated the the sinking of the German raider Atlantis and a few days later, on December 1, 1941 she came upon the German supply ship Python, as she was refuelling two U Boats , one of which fired two torpedos at her. They missed and the Python scuttled herself.

Japanese in the Indian Ocean

In April, 1942 the Dorsetshire was attached a scratch fleet of obsolete British battleships hurriedly put together to stem the Japanese naval advance into the Indian Ocean. She was caught by Japanese dive bombers on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1942 and sank eight minutes after the first bomb hit. She went down at 13:50 after being struck by 10 bombs. 234 men were killed and 500 including the Captain survived in the water until rescue 32 hours later. Only 16 of the men who went into the water died, a testament to crew discipline and the leadership of Agar and the other officers and petty officers.

Agar worked hard to save his crew, picking up the wounded in a whaler, gathering up stragglers and giving good advice. He was reported by survivors as speaking calmly.

A Fairey Swordfish found the men in the water the next afternoon and an hour later the light cruiser HMS Enterprise and the destroyers HMS Paladin and HMS Panther arrived to rescue the survivors. Agar was taken aboard the Paladin.

During the engagement Agar was wounded in the leg by shrapnel. This wound turned septic as a result of being left unattended after the sinking. He had swallowed oil while in the water. These injuries affected his fitness for further seagoing duty. He was 52 and had completed 37 years of active duty. After a short stay in Bombay where his health took a turn for the worse, he was sent to hospital in South Africa. The leg healed, but lung trouble from the oil he swallowed stayed with him for the rest of his life. He arrived home on May 28, 1942.

Later Life

After leave for a month, the less than fit Agar was sent to Belfast to supervise the building and completion of the new aircraft carrier, HMS Unicorn. He worked on this assignment for a period and was placed on the retired list in 1943.


He later achieved the rank of Commodore when he was appointed President and Captain of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. Agar wrote two noteworthy books about his naval career.

Augustus Agar died on December 30, 1968 and was buried at Alton, Hampshire, England.

He was married twice, first to Ethelreda Mary Clark (divorced), daughter of Rev. Prof. William Robinson Clark (1829-1912) a theologian and educator, latterly at the University of Toronto. She died in 1959. His second wife, Ina, attended HMS Dorsetshire reunions after his death.

His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Imperial War Museum, London, England along with his telescope.

HM Coastal Motor Boat 4, his boat in the Baltic, is on permanent display at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford.

Reference


This page has been migrated from the Victoria Cross Reference with permission.