Osmond Brock

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Osmond de Beauvoir Brock, (5 January 1869 – 15 October 1947) was a Royal Navy officer. Brock served as assistant director of naval intelligence and then as assistant director of naval mobilisation at the Admiralty in the early years of the 20th century. During the First World War Brock commanded the battlecruiser HMS Princess Royal at the Battle of Heligoland Bight and at the Battle of Dogger Bank. He then commanded the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron with his flag in HMS Princess Royal at the Battle of Jutland. After the war Brock became Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff and then went on to be Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. Following the Turkish victory in Anatolia at the end of the Greco-Turkish War, Brock organised the rescue of fleeing Greek civilians and, by skillful deployment of his ships, he dissuaded the advancing Turks, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, from attacking the British garrison at Chanak in the Dardanelles neutral zone. For his diplomatic handling of the Chanak Crisis, Brock was commended by Leo Amery, the First Lord of the Admiralty, in the House of Commons in 1923. Naval career Early career Born the eldest son of Commander Osmond de Beauvoir Brock and Lucretia Jenkins (née Clark), Brock was educated at Windlesham House School, Brighton from 1878 to 1881, from where he passed second out of 100 competitors for Royal Naval cadetships. On 1 January 1882 he joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in the training ship HMS Britannia. Promoted to midshipman on 18 August 1884, he was posted to the corvette in the Mediterranean Fleet, to the barbette battleship also in the Mediterranean Fleet and then to the frigate on the Cape of Good Hope and West Coast of Africa Station. While on that station he was awarded a certificate from the Royal Humane Society for saving a man from drowning. He joined the corvette in the Training Squadron in November 1887 before being promoted to sub-lieutenant on 14 August 1888.