Dudley Pound - First Sea Lord

First Sea Lord

Pound became First Sea Lord in June 1939 and was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet on 31 July 1939. His health was doubtful even then, but other experienced admirals were in even poorer health. He also became First and Principal Naval Aide-de-Camp to the King in October 1941.

There are sharply divided opinions of Pound as First Sea Lord during the early years of World War II. His admirals and captains at sea accused him of "back seat driving" and he had some clashes with John Tovey, commander of the Home Fleet. Winston Churchill, with whom he worked from September 1939, worked with him closely on naval strategies such that he was referred to as "Churchill's anchor". However he has also been described as a "cunning old badger" who had used guile to frustrate Churchill's dramatic idea of sending a battle fleet into the Baltic early in the war. Perhaps Pound's greatest achievement was his successful campaign against German U-boat activity and the winning of the Battle of the Atlantic but he was blamed for letting the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau slip into the English Channel undetected in February 1942 and criticised for ordering the dispersal of Arctic Convoy PQ 17 in July 1942. Pound refused a peerage but was appointed to the Order of Merit on 3 September 1943, four years after the outbreak of the war.

Pound suffered from hip degeneration, which kept him from sleeping, causing him to doze off at meetings. In July 1943 Pound's wife died; by this time it was clear that his health was declining and after suffering two strokes he resigned formally on 20 September 1943. He died from a brain tumor at the Royal Masonic Hospital in London on 21 October (known in the Royal Navy as Trafalgar Day) 1943 and, after a funeral service in Westminster Abbey, his ashes were scattered at sea.