Red Sea Station
Active1846-1944-45
CountryUnited Kingdom
AllegianceBritish Empire
BranchRoyal Navy
TypeNaval station
Part of
Garrison/HQAden then Port Tawfiq
Commanders
Notable
commanders		Rear-Admiral Ronald H. C. Hallifax

The Red Sea Station was a military formation of the Royal Navy. At various times it has also been referred to as Egypt Division and Red Sea and later the Red Sea and Canal Area. The Royal Navy had distinct formations for the Red Sea at intervals from 1846 until circa 1944-45.

History

The Royal Navy established a Red Sea formation as early as 1846, administered by the Royal Indian Navy.[1][2] It was subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies until 1883, when it became part of the Mediterranean Fleet. In 1914 the station came under command of the Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean Fleet until the end of the war. Following the war the Red Sea was reabsorbed back under the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies.

During the East African Campaign, the Red Sea Force fought the Italians. British code-breakers of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park in the UK, deciphered Italian orders of 19 May 1940, coded using C38m machines, secretly to mobilise the army and air force in East Africa. Merchant traffic was stopped by the British on 24 May, pending the introduction of a convoy system. The Senior Naval Officer Red Sea, Rear-Admiral Murray, operational at Aden since April with the light cruisers HMS Liverpool and HMAS Hobart (Liverpool was replaced by HMS Leander), was reinforced by the anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Carlisle, which sailed south with Convoy BS 4, the 28th Destroyer Flotilla comprising HMS Khartoum, Kimberley, Kingston and Kandahar and three sloops from the Mediterranean. The force was to conduct a blockade Italian East Africa (Operation Begum), attack the Red Sea Flotilla and protect the sea lanes from Aden to Suez.[3]

On 21 October 1941 the Mediterranean Fleet's responsibilities were extended to include the Red Sea and Aden, including the Gulf of Aden. The Mediterranean Fleet thus took over the Red Sea Division of the Red Sea Station, which was located between the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal, excluding Suez Port.[4] Rear-Admiral Ronald Hallifax took command as Flag Officer, Red Sea (FORS).[4] Three weeks later the responsibilities were adjusted once more. On 14 November 1941 the Senior Naval Officer-in-Charge, Suez, who was based at Port Tawfik (Suez Port) was placed under the command of Rear Admiral Hallifax.

Over a hundred kilometres to the north, halfway up the Suez Canal, the Senior British Naval Officer, Suez Canal Area, based at Ismailia, remained responsible for all British naval policy questions in regards to the Suez Canal Company.[4]

In January 1944 the station was transferred back from the Mediterranean Fleet to C-in-C East Indies.

Commodore Commanding, Red Sea Division

Incomplete list of post holders included:

Rank Flag Name Term Notes/Ref
Commodore Commanding, Red Sea Division
1 Commodore Robert H. More-Molyneux 1884 - 1885 [5] later Admiral

Rear-Admiral, Egypt and Red Sea

Post holders included:

Note:Command is also known as Egypt Division and Red Sea.
Rank Flag Name Term Notes/Ref
Rear-Admiral, Egypt and Red Sea
1 Rear Admiral Thomas Jackson 6 July 1917 – 28 December 1918 [6]
2 Rear Admiral Henry B. Pelly 24 December 1918 – March, 1920 [7]

Senior Naval Officer, Red Sea Patrol

Incomplete list of post holders included:

Rank Flag Name Term Notes/Ref
Senior Naval Officer, Red Sea Patrol [8]
1 Captain William H. D. Boyle March 1916 – December 1918 [9]

Senior Naval Officer, Red Sea Force

Rank Flag Name Term Notes/Ref
Senior Naval Officer, Red Sea Force
1 Rear-Admiral A. J. L. Murray 24 May 1939 - 1 April 1941 [10]
2 Rear-Admiral Ronald H. C. Hallifax 1 April 1941 – 21 October 1941 [11]

Senior Naval Officer, Red Sea

Incomplete list of post holders included:

Rank Insig Name Term Notes/Ref
Senior Naval Officer, Red Sea
1 Captain John Campbell Annesley 2 June 1939 to 19 January 1940 [12]
2 Captain H. E. Horan 19 January 1940 to 29 June 1940 [13]

Flag Officer, Red Sea

Rank Flag Name Term
Flag Officer Commanding, Red Sea
1 Rear-Admiral Ronald H. C. Hallifax 21 October 1941 to 17 May 1942 [14]

Senior Naval Officer in Charge, Suez

Included:

Rank Flag Name Term Notes/Ref
Senior Naval Officer in Charge, Suez
1 Commodore Charles A. A. Larcom 14 November 1941 – 13 May 1942

Flag Officer Commanding, Red Sea and Canal Area

Rank Flag Name Term
Flag Officer Commanding, Red Sea and Canal Area
1 Rear-Admiral Ronald H. C. Hallifax 18 May 1942 – 6 November 1943 [14] (died in office)
2 Rear-Admiral John Waller 6 November – 28 December 1943 [14]
3 Commodore Douglas Young-Jamieson 28 December 1943 – 31 October 1944 [15]

Commodore Young-Jamieson's broad pennant was seemingly borne in HMS Stag (shore establishment), which was the name used for the base for British naval personnel in Egypt. First established at Port Said, it was commissioned on 8 January 1940. There were outposts at Adabya, Kabrit, Ismailia, Generiffa, Port Tewfik. HMS Stag was paid off in May 1949.

HMS Euphrates at Basra seemingly reported to Flag Officer, Red Sea and Canal Area, from its establishment in 1942.

Notes

  1. ^ Allen's Indian Mail and Register of Intelligence, for British and Foreign and India and China and all parts of the East. London, England: W. H. Allen and Company. 1846. p. 602.
  2. ^ Low, Charles Rathbone (1877). History of the Indian Navy: (1613-1863). London, England: R. Bentley and Son. p. 192. commodore and senior naval officer, Red Sea and Aden.
  3. ^ O'Hara 2009, pp. 99–100.
  4. ^ a b c Brown, David (2013). The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean: Vol.II: November 1940-December 1941. Cambridge, England: Routledge. p. 27. ISBN 9781136341274.
  5. ^ Raugh 2008, p. 77.
  6. ^ Watson, Graham E. (5 February 2001). "RN Flag Officers, 1914-1918 based on various Navy Lists". www.gwpda.org. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  7. ^ Harley, Simon; Lovell, Tony (27 August 2018). "Egypt - The Dreadnought Project". www.dreadnoughtproject.org. Harley and Lovell. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  8. ^ Archives, The National. "To Senior Naval Officer, Red Sea Patrol. Requesting on behalf of Sherif Faisal passage". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. London, England: The National Archives, JOYCE/1/112. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  9. ^ Stewart, William (2009). Admirals of the world: a biographical dictionary, 1500 to the present. Jefferson, North Carolina, USA: Macfarland. p. 38. ISBN 9780786482887.
  10. ^ Kindell, Don (14 March 2012). "Admiralty War Diaries: Loss of HMS Khartoum, June 1940". www.naval-history.net. Gordon Smith. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  11. ^ Kindell, Don (14 March 2012). "Admiralty War Diaries: Loss of HMS Khartoum, June 1940". www.naval-history.net. Gordon Smith. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  12. ^ Houterman, J.N. "Royal Navy (RN) Officers 1939-1945 - A". www.unithistories.com. Houterman and Koppes. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  13. ^ Kindell, Don (14 March 2012). "Admiralty War Diaries: Loss of HMS Khartoum, June 1940". www.naval-history.net. Gordon Smith. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  14. ^ a b c The Navy List. London, England: H. M. Stationery Office. December 1942. p. 1340.
  15. ^ The Navy List. London, England: H. M. Stationery Office. November 1944. p. 2264.

References

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