Sailor at Sea

Admiral Hickling began his career in the Royal Navy when he became a cadet at Osborne in 1905. In 1913 he was a sub lieutenant in the cruiser Glasgow on the South American Station. On the 1st November 1914, the Good Hope, wearing the flag of Admiral Cradock, supported by Glasgow and Monmouth, engaged the German East Asiatic Squadron commanded by Admiral Graf von Spee. An hour later, the flagship and Monmouth had gone down with all hands, Glasgow had only narrowly escaped the same fate. The Battle of Coronel was over...At the beginning of the Second World War, after a rather surprising interlude as, in rapid succession, convoy commander, civilian spy, `degausser' and commodore commanding a synthetic squadron, Hickling took command of the new cruiser Glasgow. He soon saw action in the Mediterranean, in the hunt for the German pocket-battleship Admiral Scheer, and as Naval Officer in charge of the British Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches...