Cunningham, Admiral Sir Andrew B.

Cunningham, Admiral Sir Andrew B. (1883–1963),British naval officer who, from October 1943, served as First Sea Lord and as a member of the British Chiefs of Staff and the Combined Chiefs of Staff committees.

In September 1939 Cunningham, as an acting admiral, was C- in-C of the British Mediterranean Fleet. From the outset his policy was to maintain British naval supremacy, a crucial factor in winning the battle for the Mediterranean. His air strike at the Italian fleet in Taranto in November 1940 was a master stroke and whenever possible he brought the more powerful Italian Navy to battle and invariably bested it, notably at Cape Matapan. With the entry of German air power into the Mediterranean theatre he suffered severe losses, particularly during the evacuation of Crete and in the siege of Malta. In January 1941 he was confirmed in his rank and from June to October 1942 he served in Washington as head of the British Admiralty delegation. But staff work was not his forte and he was pleased to be appointed Allied Naval Commander Expeditionary Force for the North African campaign landings in November 1942. In January 1943 he was promoted admiral of the fleet and appointed C-in-C Mediterranean, serving as the Allied Naval Commander for the Sicilian campaign landings in July 1943 and at Salerno that September. The Italian armistice, which coincided with Salerno, was the occasion for his most famous signal to the Admiralty: ‘Be pleased to inform their Lordships that the Italian battle fleet now lies at anchor beneath the guns of the fortress of Malta.’

After Pound's death Cunningham was appointed First Sea Lord and it was in no small measure due to him that NEPTUNE, the assault phase of the Normandy landings (see OVERLORD), was successfully mounted in June 1944; also under his aegis a British fleet, the largest ever assembled, operated in the Pacific war (see Task Force 57).

Affectionately known by his initials ‘ABC’, Cunningham was the very picture of a fighting admiral, with piercing blue eyes, ruddy complexion, and an infallible memory for old shipmates. He was a man of indomitable spirit; when, during the evacuation of Crete, one of his staff remarked that fighting the Luftwaffe was like butting one's head against a wall, he replied: ‘What you have forgotten, you miserable undertaker, is that you may be loosening a brick.’ He was knighted in 1939. In September 1945 he was raised to the peerage, and retired the following March. See also sea power.

Bibliography

Cunningham of Hyndhope , A Sailor's Odyssey (London, 1951).