Admiral Cunningham Quotes

Maybe it’s not, in the end, the virtues of others that so wrenches our hearts as it is the sense of almost unbearably poignant recognition when we see them at their most base, in their sorrow and gluttony and foolishness. You need the virtues, too—some sort of virtues—but we don’t care about Emma Bovary or Anna Karenina or Raskolnikov because they’re good. We care about them because they’re not admirable, because they’re us, and because great writers have forgiven them for it.

To Admiral Cunningham it was against all tradition to abandon the Army in such a crisis. He declared, “It takes the Navy three years to build a new ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition.

Maybe she’s just growing up. Maybe it happens to have coincided with getting sick. She is, whatever the reason, turning into someone who’s still effusively polite to others, who still says hello there and how are you and goodbye for now with more brio than the occasion calls for but does so from an inner remoteness no one but her father (and Isabel?) could notice. She’s possessed of an innerness. She’s acquired a tucked-away quality, as if she’s become a Violet who performs as ever but cares less about how her performances are received. A Violet who still wants others to admire her but will survive unharmed if they don’t. A Violet who apprehends, for the first time, her own future, in which no one in her present, including her father and mother, will turn out to have mattered all that much.

At that point, a different admiral—a Nelson at Copenhagen, or a Cunningham at Mers el-Kébir—might simply have ignored Italian neutrality and gone in after the German ships.

The ways of destroying a ship are developing far faster than the methods of protection.’18

Cunningham and Tedder were agreed that ‘air operations, like naval operations, are conditioned by the bases available’ and that ‘the campaign is primarily a battle for aerodromes’.

Churchill attempted to persuade Cunningham to relieve Tovey at a tête-à-tête at Chequers, drawing the firm response, ‘If Tovey drops dead on his bridge I will certainly relieve him. Otherwise not.

cultivate a sense of initiative, speed of thought and execution, expert handling at high speed in restricted waters, and decisive action at close quarters—especially at night and in smoke-screens.

Cunningham recorded that Kirk’s landings ‘constituted one of the finest exhibitions of seamanship it had been his pleasure to witness in 45 years of sailoring’.60

The surrender gave rise to one of Cunningham’s most famous signals (and demonstrated his Nelsonian sense of history): ‘Be pleased to inform Their Lordships that the Italian Battle fleet now lies at anchor under the guns of the fortress of Malta.’38

He expressed both ‘regret’ and ‘privilege’, and his ‘heartfelt thanks’ to his men and women were sincere; he would have preferred to stay in his beloved Mediterranean.43

no half measures will do. If HMG decided they must ensure we hold the Mediterranean then adequate air forces must be sent out.’32

There was a great strain on the little ships, which had to evade constant bombing and mining, and minesweepers and fighters were in short supply.

I hope it will turn out that our policy of helping Greece is the right one. To me it is absolutely right but I much doubt if our resources, particularly naval and air, are equal to the strain.’47

Britain emerged with the moral credit of having furnished the maximum of military assistance to her ally and this certainly earned the approval of the Americans.63 It revealed ‘the importance of the old military virtues such as toughness, good discipline, professional proficiency, ready resource, determination and the ability to take command’.64

Cunningham, however, knew that the Italians were unschooled in night fighting, lacking the radar possessed by several of his ships; that the enemy’s morale was probably low; that fortune favours the brave and, crucially, that he was unlikely to have another opportunity to bring the Italian fleet to battle, especially as the enemy would have the assistance of dive-bombers at dawn.

He had a love of ‘childish fun’ and ‘a great sense of humour and loved

Hostile to new ideas until they had proved themselves in action,

He had a love of ‘childish fun’ and ‘a great sense of humour and loved bawdy jokes’.

You cannot conduct military operations in modern warfare without airfields which will allow you to at least establish temporary air supremacy.’139

He replied, testily, ‘I suggest I must be allowed to be the judge of what can or cannot be done.’66

You can build a new ship in three years but you can’t rebuild a reputation in under three hundred years’,

There followed utterly senseless, unhelpful and uncomprehending communications from Churchill.

The COS insisted ‘fleet and RAF must accept risk’ involved in preventing seaborne landings.116 Cunningham replied patiently that it was essential ‘to avoid losses which without commensurate advantage to ourselves, will cripple the fleet out here’.

The Fleet has also run considerable and in my opinion unjustifiable risks in this operation which has been at the expense of all other commitments and at a time when these commitments were at their most pressing.

It appears useless to try to further pass in a convoy until the air situation in Malta and military situation in Cyrenaica have been restored.’92 It was the most insoluble of riddles. The air situation in Malta could not be restored unless more fighters, fuel and stores reached the island, while a key prerequisite of an advance in Cyrenaica

Never before’, he recalled, ‘have I felt so keenly the mortifying business of sitting behind the scenes with a heavy load of responsibility while others were in action with a vastly superior enemy.

the man on the spot is likely to know best.10

Cunningham acknowledged that he had been ‘Very crotchety these last few months and difficult in temper but we have had much to try us’.2

The forces committed were in any case marginal, the command structure was flawed and the aims of the operation were unclear.40

test out enemy strength and resolve and to establish a moral ascendancy.107

Intermission. Mare Internum. We will have a brief pause now. If this novel were a theater, you could go out into the lobby, wait in line for a drink, or for the bathroom. Give people a chance to admire your clothes, hair, or jewels. Step outside for some air or a smoke. Backstage the crew would be busy transforming the scenery, actors would change their costumes and redo their makeup, Some would be done until final curtain, others awaiting their first entrance. But we're not in the theater, and I am not letting you go outside this story, not really. Where we are is more like a pause between breaths. Whether you're inhaling or exhaling, there's a pause just before, like the pause you can feel more than hear before the tide reverses. Where we are is the point of intersection in the figure eight. Turned on its side the eight becomes the symbol of infinity. You can make this figure with your hips when you dance. Over and over you will return to that moment of balance before your weight shifts from one hip to the other. The balance of this story is about to shift. The scenery is changing, as we make our slow way across Mare Internum. A journey I am not going to describe. When the story begins again, some of the people you have come to know and love, or not, Dido, Bertha, Paulina, Reginus, and Joseph will appear less frequently... I don't like it when characters fade form the story, so I am apologizing in advance, but life is like that. We leave people and places and times behind. We encounter new ones. Sometimes we can't see the patterns or connections, but they are there, between one breath and the next. In the ebb and flow of tides. In the rhythm of the dance.