Join Date: 2004 Location: Somewhere Over the Rainbow Gender:  Posts: 2,294 | History of Admiral Percy Nelles - Part One
Percy Nelles was born to an upper-middle class family on January 7th 1892 in Brantford Ontario. The Nelles family had an army history, and oddly young Percy had a fond attachment to the idea of the Navy. His family petitioned the Department of Marines and Fisheries to have Percy Nelles join the Canadian Naval Service.
The problem for Nelles was that there was, as yet, no Canadian navy. Sir Charles Kingsmill had only just arrived to militarize the Fisheries Protection Service, and he had only just announced that the FPS would accept cadets for training--in anticipation of the founding of a naval service. By the time Charles Nelles wrote on his son's behalf on July 6, 1908, Kingsmill had already accepted a youth named F.A. Campbell. Kingsmill informed the minister of Marine and Fisheries that it would be better if the FPS had two cadets, but no more--at least for the moment. So, Nelles was actually the second cadet entered for service in the soon-to-be Canadian navy, but since Campbell promptly withdrew, Nelles alone constituted the entire class of 1908. Thus Percy Nelles became the founding cadet of the Canadian Navy.
He along with the others that would join him were posted as Midshipmen on the HMCS Niobe. After that they were transferred to the HMS Dreadnought to complete their training.
Young Percy's progress was watched closely by his father, who received reports from the deputy minister. After passing his seamanship exam with a score of 862 out of 1,000 in early January 1913, Nelles and his fellow midshipmen went to the Royal Naval College for navigation, heat and steam, mathematics and electrical instruction. Nelles finished that program with a second-class standing--only German achieved a first--tied with Bate and Brodeur. Then it was on to the Whale Island gunnery school, where Bate and Nelles finished top of the class, and from there to pilotage exams where Nelles earned a second-class standing. The summer of 1913 was spent on manoeuvres aboard HMS Neptune, one of the latest British battleships.
With all his basic qualifications completed and the RCN at home totally moribund, Nelles and his father made enquiries late in 1913 about transferring Percy's service to the imperial fleet. As Charles wrote Kingsmill in December, "I feel that he would have a better chance for advancement if he starts early in the British service...." That said, the elder Nelles confided that his son would "gladly come home when Canada gets ships...." Charles was informed that individual transfers were not possible, but that Percy's seniority was secure within the imperial naval list. In the event, it was just as well that his father was watching closely. At the end of 1913 Percy had failed to apply for promotion to sub-lieutenant, and it had to be granted in mid-1914 retroactive to Dec. 1, 1913.
By early 1914, Nelles was home on leave with all his basic training completed and no navy to serve in. Then on Jan. 2 he received word that Kingsmill had mailed him a train ticket to New York, a steamer ticket for Bermuda, and $50. And so on Feb. 25, 1914, Nelles joined the wardroom of the cruiser Suffolk, then part of the 4th Cruiser Squadron based at Bermuda. Shortly after joining her, on July 14, 1914, Nelles was promoted to acting lieutenant, a rank confirmed on Aug. 29. By then Suffolk was cruising the east coast of Mexico, looking after British interests during the civil war. When the war started in August, Suffolk immediately came north to Halifax to guard shipping in the northwest Atlantic. Nelles stayed in that duty, transferring to the cruiser Antrim, until late 1916. Cruiser patrols in the western Atlantic were tiresome and uneventful.
Nonetheless, there was plenty for a very junior officer to do, and Nelles performed well. The captain in Suffolk described him as a "very zealous + hard working.... A good officer." Antrim's captain concurred, noting "A hard working, careful + painstaking officer...who takes a real interest in his work." It was during this time that Nelles met and later married Helen Schuyler Allen in the Pembroke Parish Church in Bermuda. It was also during this period that problems with his eyesight almost ended his naval career, and forced him ashore in the United Kingdom. Until this was corrected he was considered "incapacitated from serving at sea."
In the spring of 1917, the nature of the war at sea changed profoundly, and provided an important opening for young Nelles. The Germans opted for unrestricted submarine warfare. Allied shipping losses skyrocketed, and the RCN braced for an onslaught along the east coast. By then Nelles and most of his classmates were in the UK, awaiting assignment to British ships or--in Nelles' case--his ultimate fate. At the end of March, Kingsmill ordered Nelles home, ostensibly to serve as his flag lieutenant, a post he held until Kingsmill's retirement in 1920. Although Nelles soon found himself on the staff of the Royal Naval College of Canada, it is clear that Kingsmill wanted to give the young naval officer staff experience. "These sorts of extended staff appointments in Ottawa," Sarty concluded, "were unusual; indeed, Nelles may have been unique among the young RCN officers..." who served almost exclusively in British ships and establishments before 1922. In fact, there is early indication that Nelles was among the chosen.
In 1920, Nelles went overseas for the intelligence course in England, before returning to Naval Service Headquarters (NSHQ) for "War Staff Duties (Intelligence)." While serving in Ottawa, Nelles was promoted to lieutenant-commander on July 14, 1922.
Staff appointments at NSHQ from 1917 to 1923 allowed Nelles to witness three salient events in the early years of his service. The first was the RCN's reaction to the U-boat crisis of 1917-18. Nelles, like Hose on the coast, watched the U-boats cut a swath through the east coast fisheries in 1918, and saw first-hand the consequences of unpreparedness, not least the inability or unwillingness of the imperial navy to solve Canada's problems despite its promises. He would also have witnessed Kingsmill's struggle to assert Canadian control over Canadian establishments, and the importance of intelligence and naval control of shipping to the ultimate defeat of the U-boats. And then he watched as all that hard work was nearly swept away in the budget crisis of 1921-22. These were formative years, and Nelles' commitment to the Canadian navy can only have been solidified by the experience. Moreover, the senior staff of the RCN, among them the new director of the naval service, Walter Hose, clearly liked what they saw of him.
After leaving Ottawa in 1923, Nelles spent a decade alternating between British and Canadian posts, and sea and shore assignments. His first posting was to the British cruiser Caledon as executive officer in 1923, clear evidence that his vision problems had been corrected. When Captain Dudley North left Caledon in April 1924 he recommended Nelles for the war staff course, which he completed that year. The course went well and Nelles got a solid evaluation from the new captain of Caledon when he left her in October. "A very keen and zealous officer," he wrote. "Small in stature with no great outstanding characteristics. He is most painstaking with his work, good tempered + very pleasant socially. Has taken a Staff Course and should make a good staff officer. Saved from being mediocre by his love for + keeness on his profession."
By the time he finished the RN staff course, Nelles was already tagged for position of senior naval officer at Esquimalt. This was a reward that must have seemed like rustication for an officer who wanted to be at sea. After spending some time in Ottawa updating the west coast defence plans and then visiting the naval reserve divisions across the west, Nelles took command of Canada's west coast naval establishment on Dec. 1, 1925. That same day he was promoted to commander, a full 13 months ahead of his closest contemporary, Brodeur. Nelles stayed at Esquimalt until 1929, and by then--if not sooner--he was Hose's chosen man.
In 1928, Hose began lobbying the Admiralty for a sea assignment for his protege, and wrote an enthusiastic endorsement of his period in command on the west coast. Then, following the RN's staff officer technical course in late 1929, Nelles landed the best sea-going job of his career: Executive officer of the Bermuda-based cruiser HMS Dragon in March 1930.
In the summer of 1930, Dragon set off on a South American tour and was making her way down the Pacific coast when her captain dropped dead. As Dragon's executive officer, Nelles immediately assumed command. However, the Admiralty had no thoughts of abandoning the cruise. So Nelles was appointed acting captain and carried on, taking Dragon on a three-month program of visits to South American countries and serving as the empire's ambassador.
Everyone was well pleased with his work. Vice-Admiral V.H. Haggard, RN, commander-in-chief of the America and West Indies Squadron, declared himself entirely satisfied with Nelles' performance and recommended him for promotion to captain. So, too, did the RN's Home Fleet commander, who "especially" recommended his promotion.
This was just the kind of endorsement Nelles needed. By December 1930, Hose was advising his deputy minister that Nelles was likely the next chief of the naval service. However, there were still several things Nelles needed to do to qualify for the job, and Hose saw that he did them. When he came home in 1931, Nelles took command of the new destroyer Saguenay upon her commissioning on May 22. Assuming as well the title of senior officer, Canadian Destroyer Flotilla, Nelles spent a year at sea before Hose brought him ashore in June 1932 for a brief stint as commander-in-charge of HMCS Stadacona, the navy's east coast base.
With that, Nelles had commanded both of the RCN's major establishments, one of its destroyers and, in fact, the flotilla as well, and held some key staff jobs at NSHQ. There was now just one thing left to do. On Jan. 1, 1933, Nelles was promoted to full captain and sent off to the Imperial Defence College in Britain for his final finishing as a senior officer. Nelles became the assistant chief of the naval service on Jan. 1, 1934, and, upon promotion to commodore first class, on July 1 of that year he took over from Hose as chief of the naval service. He was the first RCN officer to become the professional head of the service.
Nelsonic in stature, if not in deed, Nelles, by 1934, was nonetheless the youngest commodore first class in the British Commonwealth, and he was no pushover. General Andy McNaughton commented that during the 1933 debates over laying-up the fleet that Nelles was by no means "inflexible", and was perhaps "open to conviction." Maybe, but Nelles shared Hose's passion for the RCN, and the army would find him uncompromising in his defence of his service. Indeed, within five years Nelles had secured the destroyer fleet laid out by Hose a decade before and was already working on more ambitious plans. |
31st May 2006, 16:16 
thats a big bio! There should be a book 
Whooo Nelles! 
