World War I and After
Promoted to Lieutenant in 1902 and Commander on the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he commanded HMS Harpy in the Mediterranean Fleet from 1913 to 1915; seeing action at Gallipoli in 1915. He was appointed Flag Commander to the Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, from 1917 to 1918, and became a Captain in 1919, in which year he was awarded the CMG.
Dickens was appointed to the Directing Staff of the Imperial Defence College from 1926 to 1929, and commanded HMS Repulse from 1929 to 1931. He was a Naval aide-de-camp to King George V from 1931 to 1932, and was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1932. He was the Director of Naval Intelligence Division from 1932 to 1935, and was awarded the CB in 1934 and, following his appointment as Admiral Commanding the Reserve Fleet in 1935, he was promoted to Vice Admiral in 1936. Created KCVO in 1937, Dickens was put on the retired list in 1938 and was appointed Admiral (Retired) in 1940.
Read more about this topic: Gerald Charles Dickens
Famous quotes containing the words and after, world and/or war:
“We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“But with one step backward taken
I saved myself from going.
A world torn loose went by me.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore.”
—Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus, 44:14.
The line “their name liveth for evermore” was chosen by Rudyard Kipling on behalf of the Imperial War Graves Commission as an epitaph to be used in Commonwealth War Cemeteries. Kipling had himself lost a son in the fighting.