World War II
Vian returned to the UK shortly before World War II broke out. An appointment to command the boys' training establishment HMS Ganges was cancelled, and he was appointed to command of the 11th Destroyer Flotilla. This flotilla had been recently activated from reserve and consisting of seven old V and W class destroyers plus his own ship, HMS Mackay, based first at Plymouth then at Liverpool, with the role of escorting Atlantic convoys. There was an ineffective brush with a u-boat. A change in policy required Vian, as a Captain (D), to operate from shore, the better to command his flotilla.
Early in 1940 he moved again, this time to command of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla, the famous Tribal class destroyers. The leader's ship at the time was HMS Afridi but as she was due for a refit he swapped ships to take over Cossack. (The following are highlights; there were many other "routine" but necessary operations and actions.)
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Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“War and culture, those are the two poles of Europe, her heaven and hell, her glory and shame, and they cannot be separated from one another. When one comes to an end, the other will end also and one cannot end without the other. The fact that no war has broken out in Europe for fifty years is connected in some mysterious way with the fact that for fifty years no new Picasso has appeared either.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)