Britain’s Greatest WW2 Admiral #Ad

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]This is HMS Warspite, the flagship of one of Britain's greatest naval commanders, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. Cunningham commanded the British Mediterranean fleet from 1939 to 1943, a time when these waters were the most dangerous on Earth. In November 1940, he masterminded an attack by Swordfish aircraft on the Italian fleet at Toronto, disabling three battleships in a raid that was the inspiration for Japan's Pearl Harbor attack a year later. He continued this offensive spirit into the following year, and in March 1941, his battleships annihilated an Italian cruiser division off Cape Matapan. But even with these early successes, the pressure on Cunningham's fleet increased as the Germans swept their way through Greece. Soon Cunningham's fleet was called on to evacuate troops from Greece in the face of more than 600 Axis aircraft. The bombardment was brutal. 10 ships were lost in the space of a week and 21 others damaged. At one stage, Cunningham's advisers begged him to call off the evacuation and try and save his ships. But Cunningham knew there were thousands of troops depending on the navy to take them to safety as it had always done and he was not about to let them down. He said it takes 3 years to build a ship, but it would take 300 years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue. By the end of the evacuation, some 18,000 troops had been taken to safety. It was a huge achievement in the face of incredible pressure. After this, Cunningham continued to steer the Mediterranean fleet through to the invasion of Italy when he oversaw the final surrender of the Italian fleet. You can have Admiral Cunningham command your own ship in the free-to-play game World of Warships, where he is available as an in-game captain that gives your vessel unique bonuses in intense multiplayer battles.