Augustus Agar

Augustus Willington Shelton Agar, (4 January 1890 – 30 December 1968) was a Royal Navy officer in both the First and the Second World Wars. He was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, for sinking a Soviet cruiser during the Russian Civil War.

In his naval biography, ''Footprints in the Sea'', published in 1961, Agar described himself as "highly strung and imaginative." The ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' says that Agar "epitomizes the 'sea dog' of British naval tradition: honourable, extremely brave and totally dedicated to King, country and the Royal Navy."

Early life

Augustus Agar was born in Kandy, Ceylon, on 4 January 1890. He was the thirteenth child of John Shelton Agar/Eagar, an Irishman from Milltown, County Kerry, who had left his native land in 1860 to become a successful tea planter in Ceylon. John's cousin Honora Eagar was the first wife of Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, an Irish Fenian leader and member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Agar was brought up in comfortable circumstances in a fine house with servants. Agar's mother, who was Austrian, died shortly after his birth, and at the age of eight he was sent with one of his brothers to school in England. All his brothers were educated in English public schools, and all his sisters were educated in Austrian or German schools. His father died in 1902 of cholera which he had caught during a visit to China.

Augustus ("Gus") Agar attended Framlingham College in Suffolk. He was now without parents or a fixed home and his oldest brother, Shelton, determined that he should go into the Navy. Gus, who idolized his older brother, willingly agreed. To prepare, he attended Eastman's Royal Naval Academy in Southsea.

A friend of the family, Captain Henry Jackson, later First Sea Lord and an Admiral of the Fleet, nominated Agar for a place in the annual intake of naval cadets. After time spent with a "crammer", he passed the entrance exams and in 1904 joined the naval cadet school, HMS ''Britannia'', at Dartmouth. The ''Britannia'' was a wooden man of war, obsolete when launched in 1860, and soon tied up and used as a stationary training ship.

As a part of his training, Agar went to sea in a 5,650 ton second class cruiser, , and afterwards on the slightly older HMS ''Isis''. These ships were stationed at Bermuda and many classes were held ashore when the ships were in port. Agar had many pleasant memories of sports, swimming, boating and picnics during this period.

Agar served at sea in a number of ships in the prewar period, including the battleships attached to the Mediterranean Fleet, and , commanded by Captain (later Admiral) David Beatty. He greatly admired Beatty's dash and style.

Agar's early training gave him a thorough grounding in basic naval matters, especially in handling small boats. This was to prove a great asset later in his career. In 1910 Agar passed his seamanship examination with flying colours and was made an acting sub-lieutenant. During 1911, he served aboard a destroyer, . He spent the next period on course at Portsmouth and studying at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. He was promoted to lieutenant on 30 June 1912.

After his courses were complete, Agar was assigned to small ships, his first being ''Torpedo Boat No. 23''. In April 1913 he was sent to learn to fly. It was not entirely his ''métier'', though he obtained his licence after enduring three crashes in the very primitive aircraft of the time. He joined the pre-dreadnought battleship in September 1913, attached to the Home Fleet.

First World War

The Grand Fleet

Agar was aboard ''Hibernia'' when the First World War broke out in August 1914, and soon sailed with her to Britain's wartime base at Scapa Flow. He was a part of Admiral Sir John Jellicoe's Grand Fleet.

As newer and faster dreadnoughts joined the fleet, the pre-dreadnoughts became increasingly obsolete, being slower, with much less firepower and poor design features.

The Dardanelles and guard duty

In the summer of 1915 it was decided to send ''Hibernia'' out to the Dardanelles to provide gunnery support to the Allied landings on the Gallipoli peninsula. She arrived in September 1915 at the Royal Navy base at Mudros on the Greek island of Lemnos at the entrance to the straits leading to the Black Sea.

The sheltered waters of the Aegean Sea and the straits enabled ''Hibernia'' to use all her guns and she was employed in firing at Turkish targets on Gallipoli and the nearby Asia Minor shore. She was hit once by a Turkish shell, but not seriously damaged.

''Hibernia'' returned to Britain when the Allies evacuated Gallipoli and was stationed at Rosyth with others of her class to guard against raids on the British coast by German ships. Because of their slow speed and weak offensive power, the pre-dreadnought battleships were not ordered to join the Grand Fleet for the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916, though they got up steam pending the outcome of the engagement.

North Russia

After Jutland the battleship threat from Germany receded somewhat and the danger from mines and submarines grew. Especially vulnerable were the two ports of Murmansk and Archangel in North Russia used by British merchant ships taking materiel to their ally. Mine-sweeping naval trawlers were sent to counter this threat, and two old cruisers were modified to act as repair workshops and headquarters for this flotilla. Agar joined one of them, , as executive officer in December 1916. The ''Iphigenia'' dated from 1892, displaced 3,400 tons and in her early days could make 20 knots.

''Iphigenia'' arrived at Murmansk in March 1917, just as the Russian Revolution was beginning. She operated out of Archangel in the summer when the White Sea was clear, and from the ice free Murmansk in the winter. Although it was apparent to local Allied commanders that the materiel landed after the spring of 1917 was not being put to good use, their advice to stop the flow was ignored by Whitehall. Indeed, much of the materiel was either destroyed or ended up being used by the Bolsheviks or the Germans.

While at Murmansk, Agar had the opportunity to renew acquaintance with Russian officer friends from the cruiser , which was berthed alongside. He had served with them in the Dardanelles when he was on HMS ''Hibernia''. He met them again at the Devonport dockyard. However, mutiny soon broke out on the ''Askold'', and Agar was shocked to see his officer friends arrested one by one and taken ashore, not to be seen again. Discipline aboard the ship broke down completely and, after the last of the food and supplies were consumed, she was abandoned to rust away.

This difficult and occasionally dangerous mission occupied the ''Iphigenia'' until the end of February 1918, when worsening conditions and a hostile Bolshevik government prompted a withdrawal. The British were able to take away with them a number of Russians fleeing the Bolsheviks.

The Russian experience was of value to Agar later in his career.

Coastal motor boats

Agar served in the Coastal Motor Boats (CMBs) in home waters during the latter part of the war. These small vessels displaced just 5 tons, compared to the 1,110 tons of a First World War era destroyer. Their main offensive weapon was a torpedo. They were of shallow draught and could operate close inshore.

The CMBs carried one or two torpedoes, depending on whether they were "forty footers" or "fifty-five footers". Mines could be substituted for torpedoes and they also carried depth charges and Lewis guns. It was planned that they be either towed or carried into battle on the German controlled coast by the light cruisers and destroyers of Commodore Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt's Harwich Force. With their shallow draught they could skim over the mines and attack the German patrol craft around Heligoland. As 1918 wore on a more ambitious scheme matured to send the CMBs in over the shallow coastal waters to attack the German fleet at its anchorage. However, the Armistice occurred on 11 November 1918 before these plans could be put into effect.

It was as a torpedo and mining officer that Augustus Agar was selected for this service. He participated in the famous raid on Zeebrugge led by Acting Vice-Admiral Roger Keyes, CMBs being used to lay smoke screens outside the mole to cover the escape of the crews of the blockships. During the summer of 1918, he was stationed at Dover and at Dunkirk, where the CMBs attacked German patrol craft along the Belgian coast.

Russian Civil War

The end of the war found him at the CMB base at Osea Island in Essex, England. He was asked in late 1918 by Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, head of the foreign section of the British Secret Intelligence Service, to volunteer for a mission in the Baltic Sea, where CMBs were to be used to ferry British agents back and forth from Bolshevik Russia. The shallow draught and high speed of the CMB made it ideal for landing on enemy occupied shores and making a quick getaway. Agar and his two boats were technically under the command of the Foreign Office (specifically Captain Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming head of MI6).

Agar set up a small base at Terijoki, just inside Finland and close to the Soviet frontier. From here he undertook a top secret and dangerous mission to retrieve Paul Dukes, a man he knew only by the MI6 codename ST-25, from the coast of the Bay of Petrograd. The last British agent left in Russia, Dukes had been infiltrating the Bolshevik government for some time and had made copies of top secret documents. A master of disguise, he was known as "The Man with A Hundred Faces", but his resources had run out by this time. In order to spirit Dukes away, Agar's boats had to cross Bolshevik minefields and pass by a number of forts and ships guarding the entrance to the Bolshevik naval base at Kronstadt and to Petrograd, now St. Petersburg.

Also operating in the eastern Baltic Sea was a Royal Navy detachment of light cruisers and destroyers under Admiral Sir Walter Cowan. Though technically not connected, Agar regularly reported to Cowan and received assistance from him. Cowan's mission was to keep the sea lanes open to the newly independent Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, which were under threat of being overrun by Soviet Russia.

On their missions Agar and his crews dressed in civilian clothes to maintain the fiction that Britain was not involved. They had a uniform on board in case they were in danger of capture. Without the uniform, they could be shot as spies.

Agar felt that his small force should be doing more than acting as a shuttle service. The Bolsheviks had seized much of the Russian fleet at Kronstadt, and Agar considered these vessels a menace to British operations and took it upon himself to attack the enemy battleships.

He set out with his two boats, HM ''Coastal Motor Boat 4'' and another, on 17 June 1919. One had to turn back before completing its mission, but Agar continued into the bay. The battleships were not in the harbour though. ''CMB4'' penetrated a destroyer screen and was closing on a larger warship further inshore when ''CMB4'', whose hull had been damaged by gunfire, broke down. She had to be taken alongside a breakwater for repairs and for twenty minutes was in full view of the enemy. The attack was then resumed and a Russian cruiser, the 6,645 ton was sunk, after which Agar retired to the safety of the open bay under heavy fire. For this he was awarded the Victoria Cross on 22 August.

Realizing the utility of the CMBs, Cowan ordered more to be sent out from England to add to his fleet.

On 18 August 1919, Agar took his remaining boat against the Soviets, acting as guide-ship to a flotilla of six others, leading them through the minefields and past the forts. Agar's boat was ordered to stay outside the harbour, and the attack was led by Commander Claude Dobson. They entered Kronstadt harbour, this time damaging two battleships, 17,400 ton pre-dreadnought and dreadnought and sinking a submarine depot ship, the 6,734 ton .

Paul Dukes, meanwhile, thinking Agar dead because of his failure to appear at their rendezvous point, resolved to leave Petrograd by land and was forced to jump from tram to tram in the city to shake off Cheka agents. After a series of extraordinary adventures through war-torn Latvia under a variety of disguises, he got back to London with his secret documents copied onto tissue paper. He was subsequently knighted by King George V, and remains the only man to be knighted based entirely on his exploits as a spy.

For his part in the Kronstadt action, Agar was awarded the DSO. Dobson and another officer Gordon Steele received Victoria Crosses.

The British naval presence in the Baltic Sea was crucial to securing the independence of Estonia and Latvia.

Between the wars

Immediately following his Baltic experiences, Agar returned to Osea Island. On 20 July 1920 he married Mary Petre, 19th Baroness Furnivall.

Agar held a number of seagoing commands between the wars. His first, in June 1920 was as executive officer aboard , a 5,400 ton light cruiser assigned to the newly formed New Zealand Naval Forces, later known as the New Zealand Division (then still part of the Royal Navy). In 1922 he was given command of , an obsolete cruiser of 2,575 tons used as a training ship for the New Zealand Division. These were very happy years for Agar, in a friendly country with interesting work and regular cruises through the South Seas.

On 1 January 1924, at the request of King George V, Agar was appointed captain of the Royal Yacht , another pleasant duty. He served until January 1925.

A great professional assignment in April 1926 was command of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet. The commander in chief, Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, specifically asked for Agar. Keyes was an outstanding leader and brought the fleet to the height of its efficiency. The flotilla consisted of four ships, and Agar commanded the flotilla leader until July 1927.

By the late 1920s, Agar and his wife were living apart; they divorced in 1931. This probably had an adverse effect on his chances for promotion, keeping him from reaching flag rank.

After these assignments, Agar was sent on courses and on shore duty for several years, including a stint as naval advisor to the New Zealand Delegation to the London Naval Conference 1930.

On 30 September 1930, Agar was placed in command of the sloop attached to the North America and West Indies Squadron. During this time he married Ina Margaret Lindner in Bermuda, a union which lasted the rest of his life. He served aboard ''Scarborough'' until September 1932.

Other seagoing commands followed, first in early 1936 aboard the 4,190 ton anti-aircraft cruiser , part of the Reserve Fleet at the Nore. Then, from 15 January 1937 he commanded his favourite ship, the 7,300-ton light cruiser , which, along with her sister, , was the fastest ship in the Royal Navy at 35 knots.

''Emerald'' was attached to the East India Station from January 1937 to July 1938. Agar then served as captain of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, England, but with war in the offing he was returned to command of the ''Emerald'' in the summer of 1939.

Second World War

HMS ''Emerald'', gold ingots and the North Atlantic convoys

When war began on 3 September 1939 Agar was in command of the ''Emerald'' and, as in 1914, was directed to Scapa Flow. His ship was soon ordered onto the "Northern Patrol", between the Faroe Islands and Iceland, to intercept any German merchant ships trying to return to their homeland. A second duty was to stop neutral ships and check for contraband headed for Germany. ''Emerald'' had just returned to Scapa on 1 October 1939 when Agar received "Top Secret" orders to proceed "with all despatch" to Plymouth, England.

On 3 October, ''Emerald'' dropped anchor in Plymouth. A short time later Agar was being briefed by Rear Admiral Lancelot Holland on his mission. The written instructions were:

On 7 October 1939, ''Emerald'' sailed from Plymouth, England for Halifax, Nova Scotia with the gold bullion from the Bank of England bound for Montreal, Quebec, Canada to be used to pay for American war materials. This voyage was a component of Operation Fish, the transfer of British wealth to Canada, and was under the strictest secrecy, with the crew were outfitted with tropical whites to confuse German agents. In the company of the two old battleships, and , her sister ship, ''Enterprise'', and the old cruiser , she ran into some of the heaviest seas that Agar encountered. By the time they reached Halifax the ''Emerald'' had lost her ship's boats, rafts and various depth charges, wires, shackles and other valuable equipment, not to mention her spotter plane, a Fairey Seafox.

Upon arrival in Halifax, ''Emerald'' was assigned to North Atlantic convoy escort duty for the return voyage. The large convoy was filled with American munitions for the war effort. Since the ''Emerald'' had been designed and equipped for work in gentler climates this was very uncomfortable as well as dangerous duty. The Canadian Red Cross

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