HUGH KNOLLYS earned
his DSC as the navigator of the minesweeping sloop
Harrier when leading a flotilla of sweepers
under fire ahead of the Normandy invasion forces
in the early dawn of D-Day, June 6, 1944. An
unhindered assault on Sword Beach by British 1
Corps would depend upon the thoroughness of such
clearance operations and their accurately placed
buoyage.
While navigator of the flotilla leader Saumarez,
he was awarded a mention in dispatches for his
contribution to the last classic destroyer action
of the Second World War which took place against
the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro south of
the Andaman Islands on May 16, 1945. Warned by
Ultra intelligence, Captain Manley (afterwards
Admiral Sir Manley) Power, manoeuvred his
exceptionally efficient destroyer flotilla of five
ships so as to encircle Haguro and sink her
with torpedoes. Saumarez was badly damaged
by a shell in the forward boiler room. Power told
Knollys that as he already had one DSC he wouldn’t
recommend another.
Knollys remained with Saumarez after the
war and in October 1946 was involved in the Corfu
Channel incident. In May a force of British
warships had passed through the international
waters of the Corfu Channel and had been fired on
by Albanian shore batteries. The subsequent
exchange of angry diplomatic notes was not
satisfactory to the amour propre of a
maritime nation which had just won a world war and
had a strong interest in making sure that the
letter of the international law of the sea should
be obeyed.
A
force of two cruisers and two destroyers made a
somewhat improvident demonstrative passage through
the channel and Saumarez struck a mine
which blew off her bow and started a fire which
accounted for most of the 36 of her complement who
died. Knollys was slightly injured. The fire was
courageously extinguished and Saumarez was
taken in tow, stern first, by her consort,
Volage, who also hit a mine soon afterwards,
sustaining eight deaths. By superb seamanship,
Volage managed to tow Saumarez to
Corfu.
At
the International Court at The Hague, it was shown
that Albania had illegally mined the channel;
Britain was awarded damages of £843,000. This has
never been paid.
Knollys’s early naval career included a commission
on the China station in the cruiser Suffolk
in 1938. In 1939 he joined the battleship
Ramillies and served as a watchkeeper for four
years. One of his fellow officers was Prince
Philip of Greece. After the fall of France,
Ramillies took part in the tense but
eventually peaceful neutralisation of a powerful
French squadron in Alexandria, as well as an
inconclusive action against the fleeing Italian
fleet off Cape Spartivento.
He
was also involved in the capture of Madagascar
from the embittered Vichy French, in order to
pre-empt its seizure by the Japanese. Fluent in
French, Knollys was a useful liaison officer.
While at anchor in harbour, Ramillies was
torpedoed by an enterprising Japanese submarine
and had to retire to Durban for repairs.
Knollys went to the Harrier in 1943 and
took part in two Russian convoys, the second of
which returned from Archangel with 54 tons of
bullion in the cruiser Kent, Soviet payment
for armaments supplied.
After the war Knollys served both at home and in
the Mediterranean, including the first commission
of the Royal Yacht Britannia. His
final appointment was as flag lieutenant to the
C-in-C Portsmouth, and he left the Navy in 1958.
He
worked with Chichester Press as a designer until
1969 when he became a freelance artist, selling
children’s portraits on the beach and executing
numerous commissions, mainly of warships but
including landscapes in watercolour and oils. He
held many exhibitions, the first in Malta in 1946,
and his paintings were hung by the Armed Forces
Art Society and the Society of Marine Artists.
Print runs of his warship Christmas cards often
exceeded 70,000.
His
wife, Cicely, whom he married in 1943, died in
1982. He is survived by their son and daughter.
