Rear Admiral
Rear admiral is a flag officer rank used by English-speaking navies. In most European navies, the equivalent rank is called counter admiral.
Rear admiral is usually immediately senior to commodore and immediately below vice admiral. It is ...
Clarence Dinsmore Howard-Johnston (13 October 1903 – 26 January 1996) was a British Royal Navy officer and inventor. He specialised in
anti-submarine warfare
Anti-submarine warfare (ASW, or in the older form A/S) is a branch of underwater warfare that uses surface warships, aircraft, submarines, or other platforms, to find, track, and deter, damage, or destroy enemy submarines. Such operations ar ...
during the inter-war years, later heading the Anti-Submarine Division at the Admiralty. In 1953, he was promoted to rear-admiral and served on the NATO staff.
Early life
Born in
St George Hanover Square
St George Hanover Square was a Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the metropolitan area of London, England. The creation of the parish accompanied the building of the St George's, Hanover Square, Church of St George's, Hanover Square, ...
,
Westminster
Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...
, Clarence Johnston was the son of John Howard Johnston (1850–1913), an American from
New Hampshire
New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
, and his wife Dorothy Florence Baird, of Scottish origins."Howard-Johnston, Rear-Adm. Clarence Dinsmore" ''Who Was Who'' online edition published 1 December 2007, accessed 10 March 2025 Both the Johnston and Baird families were in engineering. He was brought up in
Nice
Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one million
Howard-Johnston's father died in 1913, and his mother remarried, becoming Comtesse Pierre du Brevil de St Germain. He entered the
Royal Naval College, Osborne
The Royal Naval College, Osborne, was a training college for Royal Navy officer cadets on the Osborne House estate, Isle of Wight, established in 1903 and closed in 1921.
Boys were admitted at about the age of thirteen to follow a course lasting ...
The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' says he first went to sea in 1922 as a
midshipman
A midshipman is an officer of the lowest Military rank#Subordinate/student officer, rank in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Royal Cana ...
.
Career
The sources differ regarding Howard-Johnston's early career, with ''The Times'' saying he spent some time on secondment in France and then was posted to China as second-in-command of while another source says that he was a lieutenant in 1925 when he served in ''Tarantula'' on the
Yangtze river
The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...
. By 1931, he had decided to specialise in anti-submarine warfare, and served in destroyers and the anti-submarine training centre at . It was here that he invented the Towed Asdic Repeater Target. By 1937, he had become a commander – his first command was . After ''Viscount'', from 1938 to 1940 he was seconded to the
Royal Hellenic Navy
The Hellenic Navy (HN; , abbreviated ΠΝ) is the naval force of Greece, part of the Hellenic Armed Forces. The modern Greek navy historically hails from the naval forces of various Aegean Islands, which fought in the Greek War of Independence. ...
as Director of Studies at the Greek Naval War College in
Athens
Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...
and was decorated by the Greeks.
In 1940, Howard-Johnston joined the anti-submarine warfare division at the Admiralty, and later the same year was detached to set up an anti-submarine training unit at
Quiberon
Quiberon (; , ) is a commune in the French department of Morbihan, administrative region of Brittany, western France.
It is on the southern part of the Quiberon peninsula, the northern part being the commune of Saint-Pierre-Quiberon. It is ...
and then to organise anti-submarine operations in Norway. He received a Distinguished Service Cross for his time there, although not for anti-submarine duties: instead, for the evacuations at Andalsnes and
Molde
Molde () is a List of towns and cities in Norway, town and the seat of Molde Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Romsdal. It is located on the Romsdal Pen ...
. A month later, he was ordered to demolish the port facilities at
St Malo
Saint-Malo (, , ; Gallo: ; ) is a historic French port in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany.
The walled city on the English Channel coast had a long history of piracy, earning much wealth from local extortion and overseas adventures. In 1944, the All ...
, and received a
Mention in Dispatches
To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face of t ...
for this work.
Howard-Johnston was then transferred to command on the north Atlantic convoys, for which he received another Mention in Dispatches – and then in January 1941 the DSO, "for skill and enterprise in action against Enemy Submarines", referring to the sinking of ''
U-651
German submarine ''U-651'' was a German Type VIIC U-boat built for Nazi Germany's ''Kriegsmarine'' for service during World War II. She was ordered just after the war started in 1939, laid down on 16 January 1940, launched on 21 December that y ...
''. He was then transferred to Liverpool, to train others, before being promoted to captain in June 1943, and had been made director of the Anti-Submarine Division at the Admiralty.
In 1945, he was given command of the
light cruiser
A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to thi ...
HMS ''Bermuda'', and then from August 1950 to October 1952 was Captain of the HMS ''Vernon'' Torpedo School. In 1951, while at ''Vernon'', he had to organise the unsuccessful search for , on which his son was serving. There were no survivors.
In 1946, Howard-Johnston was honoured by the United States when he was appointed as an Officer of the
Legion of Merit
The Legion of Merit (LOM) is a Awards and decorations of the United States military, military award of the United States Armed Forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievemen ...
. In 1953, he was promoted to rear-admiral, and served on the NATO staff before finally retiring. He was appointed a
Companion of the Order of the Bath
Companion may refer to:
Relationships Currently
* Any of several interpersonal relationships such as friend or acquaintance
* A domestic partner, akin to a spouse
* Sober companion, an addiction treatment coach
* Companion (caregiving), a caregi ...
Howard-Johnston was married three times. In 1928, he married Esme Fitzgibbon. He had a son from his first marriage, Richard Howard-Johnston, a sub-lieutenant who died in 1951 in the loss of HMS ''Affray''. In 1941, he married secondly Lady Alexandra Henrietta Louisa Haig, a daughter of Field Marshal Earl Haig, with whom he had a daughter and two sons, including the historian
James Howard-Johnston
James Douglas Howard-Johnston (born 12 March 1942) is an English historian of the Byzantine Empire. He was University Lecturer in Byzantine Studies at the University of Oxford. He is an emeritus fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. His appr ...
, before that marriage also ended in divorce. His final marriage, which was childless, was to Paulette Helleu, a daughter of the artist Paul César Helleu and a childhood friend of
Diana Mitford
Diana, Lady Mosley (''née'' Mitford; 17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003), known as Diana Guinness between 1929 and 1936, was a British fascist, aristocrat, writer, and editor. She was one of the Mitford sisters and the wife of Oswald Mosley, le ...
. They were married in 1955 and lived in
Dolphin Square
Dolphin Square is an estate of private flats with some ground floor business units near the River Thames in Pimlico, Westminster, London built between 1935 and 1937. Until the building of Highbury Square, it was the most developed garden squar ...
,
Pimlico
Pimlico () is a district in Central London, in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by Lon ...
, and in Paris and
Biarritz
Biarritz ( , , , ; also spelled ; ) is a city on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the French Basque Country in southwestern France. It is located from the border with Spain. It is a luxu ...
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'', 7 August 2009, accessed 10 March 2025 at archive.ph
Churchill Archives Centre
The Churchill Archives Centre (CAC) at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest repositories in the United Kingdom for the preservation and study of modern personal papers. It is best known for housing the papers ...