Roger Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes

Roger John Brownlow Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes (1872–1945) was a noted British admiral and hero, with a life of adventure stretching from 19th century African anti-slavery patrols to Allied landings in Leyte in World War II.

Early Days

The son of a famous hero father, Keyes was born on October 4th, 1872, at Tundiani Fort on the North West Frontier of India, where his father commanded the Punjab Frontier force. He spent his first five years here, far from the sea. The family had been home in England for three years, when his father was given a new command in India. His parents decided to take the two youngest children with them, but to leave the five oldest in the care of an English country parson. He was treated kindly by the parson who introduced him to hunting and fishing. Soon he was sent to a prep school at Margate.

Sailor

The parson's brother was an admiral, and stories of the navy were prominent in the household. He wrote his parents of his desire to be a sailor. In 1884 his father, now General Sir Charles Keyes, retired and returned to England. After some discussion and, against his father's wishes, Roger was permitted to join the Royal Navy.

Roger Keyes joined the training establishment, HMS Britannia, in the autumn of 1884, at the age of 12.

Keyes was small and delicate in health, but had an iron will. He took up fencing and rackets, sailed whenever he could and was in the centre of every boyhood scrap.

Anti Slavery Patrol

In August 1887, Keyes was appointed to HMS Raleigh, a cruiser which was flagship of the Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Station. He reached Cape Town on November 3rd and began his seagoing life. Raleigh was a full rigged sailing frigate of 5,200 tons with a propeller which could move her along a 6 knots. Under sail she could make up to 11 knots.

In 1890 Keyes transferred to HMS Turquoise, a barque rigged corvette of 2,120 tons. The ship operated from Zanzibar on slavery suppression missions. There was much opportunity for action as small naval launches under junior officers were sent out for weeks at a time to patrol the coast, probing the estuaries and creeks where Arab slavers hid with their cargoes of young women and children, seized from coastal regions in Portuguese East Africa. Often gunfights ensued as the slavers tried to make their escape. He participated in the somewhat farcical 1890 expedition against the Sultan of Wituland.

Around the World

Keyes went back to England on three months' leave which he spent learning horsemanship, and taking up fox hunting.

Naval examinations followed, not Keyes's strongest suit. However he managed to scrape by.

During this time he was attached to various ships in the Channel Fleet, including a stint in the royal yacht HMS Victoria and Albert. He met Queen Victoria and the future King George V.

Then it was off to South America for service on HMS Beagle. After this Keyes served on a training ship for new recruits. Afterwards he was given command of HMS Opossum, a new destroyer.

China

Keyes was then posted out to China to command another destroyer, HMS Hart, soon transferring to a newer ship, HMS Fame.

In April 1899 he went to the rescue of a small British force which was attacked and surrounded by irregular Chinese forces while attempting to demarcate the border of the Hong Kong New Territories. Keyes went ashore, leading half the landing party, and, while Fame fired on the besiegers, he led the charge which routed the Chinese and freed the troops.

This illustrates a trait Keyes showed all through his life, forcing himself into the centre of any fighting, whenever or where ever it might be.

In those days, the Royal Navy's China Squadron used Hong Kong as a home port during the winter, but went north to Wei hai wei on the Yellow Sea during the warm summer months. Keyes was there in late May of 1900, cursing his luck for being in so out of the way a place while the Boer War was raging in South Africa. Reports soon started to come in to British authorities of disturbances throughout North China, aimed particularly against Chinese Christians, missionaries and European merchants. The anti-foreign agitators were called Boxers, and soon were threatening the foreign Legations in Peking and the European settlement at Tientsin. Local British naval forces were sent to the aid of these two threatened communities.

The Boxer Rebellion: Early Phase

With poorly armed Westeners under siege in Peking and Tientsin, relief was essential, using whatever military forces that happened to be in China. Most British forces were in South Africa, occupied with fighting the Boers. The role of the British China Squadron was vital.

Since both cities were inland, Tientsin some 30 miles up a shallow river, the Pei-ho, and Peking some 60 miles further inland, battleships were of no use. But, destroyers could, at high tide, get over the bar and into the river. Taku was at the mouth of the river and was defended by three modern Chinese forts, whose gunners were trained by Europeans. Government forces were beginning to side with the Boxers, so any attempt to go up the River might well draw hostile fire.

Four miles upriver from the forts was a modern dockyard and secured to its walls were four brand new German built Chinese destroyers, the most up to date in Asia. They were fully manned and ready for action. Then came the railhead at Tongku, the tracks leading to Tientsin and Peking. Somewhat further up the river was Fort Hsi-cheng.

Roger Keyes arrived off Taku in HMS Fame on May 31, 1900, with the whole Squadron coming in two days later. Since Fame drew only 8 feet of water and could cross the bar into Taku during 4 hours of high tide twice per day, she was used to take messages and passengers back and forth to the railhead. As a result, Keyes became familiar with navigation on the lower stretches of the River. At this point he was able to pass the forts unmolested, though the Chinese gunners trained their guns on his ship.

The British commander, Admiral Edward Seymour, visited Tientsin on June 3rd, and alarmed, ordered a small naval brigade to its aide. Fame was busy ferrying the troops upriver, past the forts. At the same time, a desperate message arrived from Peking requesting immediate help. Admiral Seymour took a huge gamble and set out by train for Peking from Tientsin on June with 1,000 British sailors and marines. Naval ships of other countries whose nationals were besieged in Peking contributed sailors as well, and soon the Admiral commanded a mixed force of 1,990 British, German, French, Russian, American, Italian, and Austrian sailors. Then the telegraph line to Peking went dead, and Boxers began tearing up thr railway track in front of and behind the train well before Peking. Seymour was now in a dangerous situation.

The Boxer Rebellion: the Capture of the Taku Flotilla

Keyes, though a junior officer, began to show once again the foresight and leadership which so characterized his career. He determined that the capture of the Taku forts and the seizure of the Chinese destroyers was the key to the relief of Tientsin and Peking. With another junior officer, Commander Christopher Craddock, he made a land reconnaissance of the forts on June 13 to discover the best line of attack.

On June 15th, Keyes was sent by Admiral James Bruce, acting commander, to Tientsin to find out the state of defences and what had happened to Admiral Seymour and his force. He went by himself and boarded the train at Tongku, the sole European aboard. Though harassed he somehow made it and reported to the local British commander, Captain Bayly and his second in command, Commander David Beatty. Also in Tientsin, helping to fortify the place, was a later famous American, the civilian engineer, Herbert Hoover. Bayly reported Seymour's precarious situation, with the relief column needing relief itself. He urged Keyes to make it back to Admiral Bruce as quickly as possible to persuade him to seize the Taku forts. Keyes borrowed a revolver and set off. The only train leaving Tientsin headed towards the coast that night was a Chinese troop train, but it had already left by the time he got to the station.

Keyes commandeered a locomotive, bribed the engineer and fireman and set off. When they approached a station en route, they saw that the platform was covered with Chinese soldiers. The railwaymen lost courage and slowed down, until Keyes put his revolver to the engineer's temple, and they steamed through the trouble. When returning to the ship, he discovered that the Chinese had laid mines in the river channel that afternoon.

With some difficulty, Keyes persuaded Bruce of the need to seize the destroyers and the forts. At an international naval gathering next morning it was agreed to issue an ultimatum to the Chinese commander to hand over the forts temporarily to the Europeans. Should the demands not be agreed to, Keyes was given the task of seizing the destroyers at 2am the next morning with an attack on the forts to follow at daybreak.

Keyes scouted the Chinese ships in a lighter before the ultimatum expired, and developed a detailed plan to storm the ships and seize them intact. The four Chinese destroyers, moored to the wharf alongside the dry dock, were getting steam up and were fully manned. They displaced 280 tons and could make 32 knots, had six 3-pounder guns as well as two 18-inch torpedo tubes. To face them Keyes had two slower British destroyers, HMS Fame and HMS Whiting which displaced 390 tons and could make 30 knots with an armament of one 12-pounder, five 6-pounders and two 18-inch torpedo tubes.

The plan was simple. Each British destroyer had a boarding party on its forecastle armed with pistols and cutlasses, led by its captain to seize the first and third destroyers and another boarding party in a whaler towed behind, led by the first officer to seize the second and fourth ships.

But at 1am the Chinese forts opened fire. Keyes immediately put his plan into action and, under the cover of nightfall, all went off like clockwork. After a few scuffles on deck, the Chinese crews were driven ashore or captured below. There were no British casualties, but several Chinese were killed. He then led a sortie ashore and captured the dry dock, dispersing snipers. His orders were to take the captured ships to Tongku, which he did.

The Boxer Rebellion: The Fort at Hsi-cheng

He was about to return downstream from Tongku to assist in the attack on the Taku forts, when a young British naval officer in charge of a river tug with stores and ammunition for the besieged troops in Tientsin came aboard. His orders were to make a run for Tientsin at daybreak, but his Chinese crew refused to leave for fear of being sunk by the guns of the fort upstream at Hsi-cheng. Inquiries with a Japanese gunboat captain told him that the fort had six modern 6-inch, quick-fire guns, more than a match for Keyes's two small destroyers.

Keyes then escorted the tug past the fort which did not open fire. The supplies got through to Tientsin. But he was very aware that the fort could cut communications with Tientsin whenever it wished. By the time he got back to Taku, the three forts had been taken.

He attempted without success to convince Admiral Bruce of the need to take the fort at Hsi-cheng. But reports from Tientsin grew more alarming, with Admiral Seymour in a perilous situation, and no word from Peking. He tried in vain to interest the Russians whose small army of 2,000 was slowly making its way from Tongku to Tientsin. The Russians had the only wagons available and since they were shooting every Chinese person they met, coolies were not available. The Russians made it to Tientsin, but were stuck there, with messages arriving from Seymour asking for help. Supplies could no longer get by the fort at Hsi-cheng.

Getting permission for a cautious reconnoitring of the river above Tongku ( but under no circumstances to hazard his ship), Keyes loaded the Fame with as many armed men as he could, anchored on an ebb tide off the fort and sheered into the bank. He sprang ashore, followed by a landing party of 32, armed with rifles pistols, cutlasses and explosives. Surprise was complete, the main door of the fort was open, and a party of Chinese inside was scattered. They quickly destroyed the gun mountings, and blew up the powder magazine, fleeing back to the ship in the nick of time. The same day, June 25, 1900, Admiral Seymour managed to fight his way back into Tientsin.

The Boxer Rebellion: Tientsin and Peking

After all his exploits, Keyes still managed to get himself into the thick of fighting throughout the rest of the campaign. He managed to obtain leave from the Fame for two days to run a tug and lighter with stores to Tientsin. While there he joined an attack on some Chinese batteries at the Tientsin race course, being very impressed by the Japanese troops who led it. Further requests for leave to join the fighting were frostily rejected by Admiral Seymour.

However his luck changed when troops from India arrived for the advance on Peking, led by an old friend of his father, General Sir Alfred Gaselee. Reluctantly, Seymour agreed to Gaselee's request that Keyes accompany the expedition as a naval Aide De Camp.

So it came to be that a young naval officer was the first man over the Peking walls, planting a Union Jack on the top. He was also the first to break through to the Legations.

After some time to convalesce from diphtheria, Keyes resumed command of HMS Fame, and returned to Hong Kong through a dreadful typhoon. He was soon promoted and transferred home.

Character

By this time the broad outlines of Keyes' character were there. He was impossibly brave, impatient to get things done, not suffering fools gladly, devoted to Britain and the Royal Navy, inarticulate but passionate, perhaps too quick to criticize, a great trainer of men. To all this could be added fair minded and generous.

Destroyers, Admiralty, Rome and Submarines

After a few months leave at home, Keyes was appointed to the command of a new destroyer, HMS Bat, a 360-ton 30 knotter, similar to the Fame. He was stationed at Portsmouth and was second in command of the Devonport Destroyer Flotilla. He found the ships upkeep and training exercises lax and soon his forceful personality made itself felt. He was in command of four of the ships and embarked on a rigorous scheme of training these in all weather using aggressive tactics. He brought in a like minded assistant, Commander Walter Cowan, who became a fast friend and a formidable warrior in his own right.

His efforts paid off when the ships under his command did very well in naval exercises. This led to an appointment at the Admiralty in the intelligence section. His role was to become familiar with the navies and coast defences of Italy, Japan, and Russia. In this capacity, he was called on to find out the facts surrounding the infamous Dogger Bank Incident, when Russian ships en route to the Far East to fight the Japanese, opened fire on British fishing ships in the North Sea. He was called to testify before the International Court of Enquiry held in Paris in January 1905 , and his testimony on this occasion was seen as conclusive. Britain won the dispute and proper compensation was paid.

The time back in England enabled Keyes to pursue his passion for polo, a recreation at which he made the acquaintance of Winston Churchill. They became and remained good friends for the rest of their lives. He never missed a party attended by Miss Eva Bowlby, whom he had met in March 1903 when his ship had put in at Knoydart, her father's Scottish estate.

In early 1905 Keyes took up an appointment as naval attaché at Rome, Vienna, Constantinople and Athens, with his office at the British Embassy in Rome. On April 10th, 1906, he married Eva Bowlby. They honeymooned on the Dalmatian coast and the Greek Isles.

In January 1908, Keyes took up command of HMS Venus, a second class cruiser serving with the Atlantic Fleet. This was a happy time for crew and captain. In 1910 Keyes was looking forward to command of an armoured cruiser, when he was offered the appointment of Inspecting Captain of Submarines. This was in the days of the infancy of submarines and the job was not his first choice. But he agreed and found himself in command of sixty-one undersea vessels.

Keyes had an office in the Admiralty, headquarters at Portsmouth and flotillas of submarines at Devonport, Harwich and Dundee. Each flotilla had a depot ship (an old cruiser). Though the position was initially regarded as a training role, Keyes's energy led it to become an operational command. The most effective submarines were based at Harwich, and in event of war, Keyes was to assume command of these, reporting directly to the Commander-in-Chief, Home Fleet. He was to be given, at the outbreak of war, two fast destroyers as part of his command, so as to be able to put to sea regularly to direct his submarines.

Keyes saw the worsening international situation in late July of 1914 and cancelled all leave for his men. He moved his vessels and headquarters to Harwich to be closer to Germany, and was ready for war when it broke out on August 4, 1914.

World War One: Submariner

When the war broke out, Keyes took command of the submarine force at Harwich on the south east of England.

World War I: The Dardanelles

Later Keyes was naval chief of staff during the Dardanelles Campaign.

World War I: The Grand Fleet and Admiralty Plans

After the heartbreak of the Dardanelles operation, Keyes applied for a transfer back to the Grand Fleet. He was in Salonika finishing up when news arrived of the Battle of Jutland. He returned to England immediately and took command of the battleship HMS Centurion, assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron. He was promoted Rear Admiral on April 10th, 1917. In June he was made second in command of the 4th Battle Squadron, under Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee. He flew his flag aboard HMS Colossus, Dudley Pound, captain.

World War I: The Dover Patrol

On January 1st, 1918, Keyes took over command of the Dover Patrol.

World War I: Zeebrugge and Ostend

Toward the end of the war he planned and led the famous 1918 raids on German submarine pens in the Belgian ports of Zeebrugge and Ostend.

Peacetime Sailor Again

For the first few months of peace Keyes remained at Dover, where there was much to do winding down the operation. His second son was born there.

Soon he was given command of the new Battlecruiser Squadron, hoisting his flag at Scapa Flow in HMS Lion. By 1920, he was flying his flag in the new HMS Hood. He deployer briefly to the Baltic Sea in 1920, when trouble with the Bolsheviks was in the offing, but it soon blew over. When his term in this position was over he went on half pay for a year pending a new appointment as Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff. He and his wife took the firsy holiday in years, including time spent visiting the Belgian Royal family, friends of theirs. Keyes was brought back six months early to take up his new position.

His war services were rewarded by making him a baronet and giving him an award of 10,000 pounds.

In May 1925, Keyes took up a three year appointment as Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, the premier active command in the Navy. He held the command until the spring of 1928. Many commentators hold that this fleet achieved its peak of efficiency under the restless direction of Keyes. While there he trained many of the younger officers who would achieve high command in World War Two.

In May, 1929, Keyes took up the position of Commander in Chief, Portsmouth, the most important Home Command the Navy has. But, he was very disappointed not to be made First Sea Lord in 1930. The new Labour Government emphasized disarmament, and Keyes was an outspoken advocate of a strong Navy. Sir frederick Field, a much lesser man, but one more amenable to political considerations, was appointed.

The appointment as Admiral of the Fleet came in 1930.

Member of Parliament

Sir Roger Keyes was elected Member of Parliament for North Portsmouth as a Conservative in 1934. He served until raised to the peerage as Baron Keyes of Zeebrugge and Dover in January of 1943.

World War II: Belgian Mission: Part One

When World War Two broke out Keyes was very anxious to obtain active service. But all senior positions were filled, he was just short of his 67th birthday and he had made enemies with criticisms of senior naval officers in the period before the war. He continued with his "suggestions" in Parliament during the first month of the war, especially deploring the loss of an aircraft carrier, HMS Courageous, on September 17 1939, sent on an antisubmarine mission he thought foolish. His former Chief of Staff, Dudley Pound, now First Sea Lord, was especially wounded.

But a job was soon at hand. Keyes had long been friends with the King of Belgium, Leopold II. It was his habit to visit the King at his Palace in Brussels from time to time.

Belgium was allied with France after World War One, but in 1937, fearing the rise of Hitler, the Belgians announced their conversion to neutrality. They cut off all the flow of information from the Belgian Army to the French Army. But Leopold was worried. What if the Germans attacked? Would the British and French quickly come to his aid? Brussels was filled with German spies and he dared not openly approach the Allies, lest he give Hitler a pretext to attack. He dared not risk an Allied military conference. He looked for an informal approach and thought of his old friend, Keyes, now retired. He knew everyone in authority in Britain. Leopold trusted him.

On evening in mid October, 1939, Keyes had a visitor at his home in Chelsea. It was an emissary from the King of Belgium, asking him to visit Brussels right away. Keyes quickly obtained official approval for the visit and was briefed on Britain's position vis a vis Belgium.

He started for Belgium immediately and met with the King on October 18 in Brussels. The King once more stated his desire to keep Belgium out of the war and to refrain from any act designed to antagonize Hitler. He felt that his army was much stronger than in Auguat 1914 and could hold off the Germans until the Allied armies could arrive. How soon would the Allies arrive? Keyes responded that the Allies were not prepared to leave France unless they were given specific information on Belgian plans, deployments and defences. He finally persuaded the King that the necessary information and planning could be done quietly between the British military attache in Brussels and the King's military advisor, General van Overstraten.

This understanding obtained by Keyes was of great value to Allied planning. Keyes was subsequently productively used as a link between Leopold and the British Government. But in January 1940, a German plane taking a short cut over a corner of Belgium, crashed in the country, carrying the German plans for an attack on Belgium. Word of this got out and many Belgians publically made anti German statements. Certain Belgian oficials carelessly gossiped about Keyes' visits and the French asked for a similar liason. As a result, German threats grew more menacing and Keyes discontinued his visits.

But he had already obtained permission for Allied staff officers to visit their counterparts in Brussels provided they wore civilian clothing and had civilian passports.

World War Two: Norway and the Fall of Chamberlain

The German assault on Norway on April 7, 1940 roused Keyes. It was a campaign that related to much of his past experience-amphibous landings as at the Dardanelles, scope for using small boats and storming positions from the sea, as at Zeebrugge, and the using of initiative as during the Boxer Rebellion. But most of all, Keyes was frustrated by a lack of an aggressive spirit in the war to date. Here was a chance for decisive action.

Keyes reached an independent conclusion that the regaining of Trondheim was the key to victory in Norway. He immediately advocated the forcing of Trondheim Fjord by battleships and the landing of a military force to recapture the city. Keyes sought an interview with Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty and finally got one on April 16. He submitted an outline plan to seize the city and offered to lead the expedition. If the Admiralty did not wish to hazard newer ships, he would take in old battleships.

The chiefs of staff reached similar conclusions, with the addition of subsidiary landings north at Namsos and south at Andalsnes. However they dithered back and forth about whether to send capital ships into Trondheimsfjord. After yes and no, they sent the troops into Namsos and Andalsnes and then decided not to force the fjord. This was the worst decision as German destroyers dominated the fjord, no airfields were seized to provide air cover and troops earmarked for the centre prong were never landed. The southern prong was soon drawn into fighting further south and the commander of the northern prong, Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart , who pushed through to the fjord, found his troops shelled by destroyers, attacked from the air and by ski troops, with German ships landing soldiers in his rear.

When both columns were evacuated in early May, 1940, Keyes was apoplectic. There was shock in Britain. Parliament gathered to debate matters on May 7th and 8th, 1940. The first speaker was Keyes. See Norway Debate for fuller details.

Making a dramatic entrance in the uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet with six rows of medals, Keyes gained the full attention and respect of the House of Commons. He could speak on this topic with greater authority thay anyone else in the country.

He said that he dressed in uniform because he wanted to speak for his friends among the fighting sea-going navy, who were very unhappy. It was not the fault of the navy. Leadership of the war effort was the problem. It is commonly felt that the intervention of Keyes was the beginning of the end for the government of Neville Chamberlain. Other speakers followed his attack, notably Leo Amery and David Lloyd George. The government fell two days later on May 10, 1940 and Winston Churchill became Prime Minister.

The Belgian Mission: Part Two

When the Germans invaded Belgium on May 10th, 1940, Keyes was sent as personal liason between the prime minister, Winston Churchill, and the King of Belgium, who was also commander in chief of the Belgian forces.

World War II: The Commandos

During World War Two Keyes was the first Director of Combined Operations, the Commandos. His tenure was from July 17, 1940 to October 27, 1941. He found this a frustrating job, as he was dependent on other branches and units of the armed forces for troops, equipment, transport, air cover and information. These commands were naturally not wishing to divert resources to something new and untried. Not the best use of an old fire eater.

However Keyes laid the foundations for the Commandos later success. He was 69 years old and it was time to slow down.

Family Life and Last Days

Roger Keyes and his wife were happily married and had five children, three daughters and two sons, as well as a number of grandchildren. In later years they maintained homes in the counry (Hampshire) and in the London district of Chelsea.

In December 1941, his oldest son, Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Charles Tasker Keyes,V.C., was killed at Beda Littoria, Libya, as a part of the famous commando raid to capture German General Erwin Rommell.

Keyes died on December 26, 1945, at Buckingham, England. He was 73 years old.