Difference between revisions of "Ralph Frederick Seymour"

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Commander Ralph Frederick Seymour, C.M.G., D.S.O., Royal Navy (6 January, 1886 – 4 October, 1922) was an officer of the Royal Navy during the First World War, where he served as Flag Lieutenant to Sir David Beatty in the Battle Cruiser Fleet and then in the Grand Fleet.

Life & Career

Seymour was born in Pimlico, the son of Horace Seymour, C.B., the Deputy Master of the Royal Mint. A great-grandfather, Vice-Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour, commanded the Leviathan at the Glorious First of June in 1894, and later served as a Lord Commissioner on the Board of Admiralty.

Seymour was educated at Summerfields, near Oxford. His mother later wrote that he "was born a sailor".^[1] Accordingly he joined the Royal Navy as a Naval Cadet on 15 September, 1900, being appointed to the training ship H.M.S. Britannia at Dartmouth. He passed out on 15 January, 1902, and was appointed to the battleship Mars in the Channel Squadron from the same date, as well as being rated Midshipman. His father fell seriously ill and Seymour was given leave immediately, but on returning home found the Union flag at half mast and that he was too late: Horace Seymour died on 25 June, the day before his appointment as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath was announced.^[2][3]

His subsequent early service was characterised by short periods of service in different ships. On 1 October, 1902, he was appointed to St. George, to Revenge on 3 November, and to Russell on 24 February, 1903. In August he was sent home after contracting Mediterranean Fever, but was evidently well enough to be appointed to Empress of India on 8 September, Royal Oak on 9 May, 1904, and then Triumph on 15 September. Captain Cecil Burney of Empress of India recorded of him in June, 1904, "Conduct VGI. Ability VG, rest G. Promising." On 15 March, 1905, he passed in Seamanship with a second class, and became an Acting Sub-Lieutenant. He joined the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, on 5 May to study. In June he passed Navigation Part I, and in November passed Navigation Part II. On 20 February, 1906, he took a second class in Pilotage, and on 30 May a first class in gunnery. He was appointed to the Cæsar for the Annual Manoeuvres of 1906 in June before taking a second class in torpedo on 17 August.

Seymour's first lengthy appointment was to Hermes on the East Indies Station, from 4 September, 1906, until she paid off on 3 October, 1908. In the meantime he was promoted to Lieutenant on 15 December, 1906. In September, 1908, the Commander-in-Chief on the station, Vice-Admiral Sir Edmund S. Poë, wrote that Seymour "Promises very well." The Captain, Douglas R. L. Nicholson, "Very capable & hardworking, promises very well."

Seymour was next in Irresistible from 19 December 1908 until she paid off on 1 June, 1910. On 27 July, 1910 he was appointed to Exmouth in the Mediterranean. His role in the ship was made additional, as Flag Lieutenant to Admiral Poë from 31 March to 1 June 1912.^[4]

Seymour participated in the Annual Manoeuvres of 1912 in the second class protected cruiser Thetis. In February, 1913 he qualified as Lieutenant (S), becoming a signal officer. His entry onto the Royal Navy's centre stage occurred almost immediately thereafter, on 1 March 1913, when he was appointed as Flag Lieutenant to Rear-Admiral David Beatty of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron. This role, at the right hand of one of the most forceful figures of the war, would extend to April, 1919, and place Seymour in a place where his slightest mistakes would weigh heavily. And though he made a number of considerable blunders, the context in which they occurred is worth examining, as also would be the curiously scant attention these errors drew upon himself in their immediate aftermath.^[5]

Seymour was promoted to Lieutenant-Commander on 15 December, 1914, when he and Rear-Admiral Beatty were in the battlecruiser Lion.^[6]

Battle of Dogger Bank

Main article: Battle of Dogger Bank

Seymour's first test as a signal officer would arise at the Battle of Dogger Bank, when a pair of signals were hauled down simultaneously enough that they were interpreted as a single message, the effect of which was to prompt every major British ship to concentrate fire on the doomed enemy cruiser Blücher as richer game was allowed to escape.^[7] Part of the confusion here was attributable to damage to the flagship, but the human portion of culpability which permitted several German battlecruisers to escape likely destruction fell squarely on Seymour.

When Lion was taken into dockyard hands from 24 January to 9 April, 1915 to repair her considerable damage from the battle, Seymour followed Beatty to H.M.S. Princess Royal. They then returned to Lion, with Beatty now Vice-Admiral Commanding Battle Cruiser Fleet. Seymour, despite his blunder at Dogger Bank, seemed to be the beneficiary of the gloss applied to a small victory that should have been a considerable victory. By not highlighting the lost opportunities, the more favourable public story was presented.

Battle of Jutland

Main article: Battle of Jutland

Seymour was again at the forefront in Britain's most important battle, one in which close coordination between formations was reliant on efficient and reliable signalling. In this instance, Vice-Admiral Beatty must assume a greater proportion of the blame. Two failures occurred where Seymour might be discussed as a culpable party.

Firstly, the B.C.F. turned to pursue and engage the German forces spotted at the outset of the battle, but the powerful Fifth Battle Squadron, which had been loaned to the B.C.F., were not given an effective signal to join the battlecruisers in the turn south, and this failure was allowed to persist for an unreasonable time. The greatest component of this failure was Beatty's. His share was the confluence of his failure to integrate 5 B.S. into his force, his choice to keep them fairly distant, and on the side where they'd be furthest from any enemy sighted. But, though an effort was made to signal this turn to 5 B.S., it was made from the wrong ship, and in the wrong medium (by flag hoist, rather than by flashing lamp which would have more reliably spanned the distance under the present conditions).

Secondly, after the Run to the South, when Beatty spotted the enemy battlefleet and knew he must turn north to bring them to his own battlefleet, a great delay in signalling occurred which allowed 5 B.S. to, once again, very belatedly receive this command. This apparent error placed the fast battleships of 5 B.S. in greater jeopardy than was warranted, even if Beatty wished them to be the most proximate targets of the enemy's main force as the trek north to Jellicoe's Battle Fleet was made. The cause of this delay is not entirely clear, but seems to have turned on the signal having been hoisted in a timely manner, but not hauled down when intended. The pregnant minutes in which the hoisted signal was on display but not hauled down caused Rear-Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas to slavishly wait and wait for the moment he should turn. The result, of course, was to provide the German fleet with an ever-improving target during the Run to the North when no German ship had anything else to do but fire away in an untroubled fashion. Once again, clear details of what caused this problem are hard to come by, but it is hard to imagine that they were not either caused by Seymour directly, or by his failure to ensure the efficient performance of his subordinate signalling numbers.

The aftermath of Jutland was rich with spin and finger-pointing, both within the service and toward the public. It is clear that Seymour was not a great signal officer, but the greatest obscurant of his failings was his master, Vice-Admiral Beatty, who was never eager to admit than anything had gone wrong whatsoever.

The deficiencies of the Battle Cruiser Fleet would eventually become an unavoidable topic of debate, and Seymour would become a natural target of blame who enjoyed little political clout by which he might defend himself.

Playout

On 30 June 1917, while remaining unchallenged in his suitability for his station, Seymour was promoted to Commander.^[8]

In recognition of his services during the war he was appointed an Additional Member of the Third Class, or Companion, in the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (C.M.G.) on 5 April, 1919.^[9]

He was appointed to President on 22 March, 1920, working in the Tactical Section.^[10]

After a series of hospitalisations commencing in June, 1921 for psychasthenia, Seymour was finally discharged from Haslar Hospital on 7 September, 1922 and placed on the Retired List as medically unfit, to be accorded a step in rank in 1925. He was gone within the month, however, his death recorded simply as "Died suddenly 4th October, 1922 at Brighton."^[11] His death was ruled on 6 October to have be a suicide, his body having being found at the foot of Black Rock cliffs in Brighton.^[12]

Appraisal

Seymour's service as signal officer to David Beatty through major actions resulted in serial errors of omission and commission that receive considerable attention in historical analyses. Beatty's faithfulness to his flag lieutenant was belatedly replaced by reproach and blame-laying. No matter how one may assign the balance of fault in the events, Beatty's spurning of his subordinate was keenly felt. Seymour committed suicide in 1922 after being invalided for a nervous condition.

Bibliography

See Also

Service Records

Footnotes