Reginald Hall
Sir Reginald Hall | |
---|---|
Companion of the Order of the Bath Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star |
Reginald Hall was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, eldest son of
In 1894 Hall married Ethel Wootton de Wiveslie Abney, daughter of Sir William.[2] The engagement had begun when he was aged 19, five years before, but at the time this was still considered a young age for a naval officer to get married. In 1895 he was appointed as gunnery lieutenant on the cruiser Australia where he served for two years before being appointed to the senior staff at Whale Island. He was promoted to commander 1 January 1901, in recognition of services with naval forces in South Africa,[3] and later served on the battleship Magnificent, flagship of the second in command of the Channel Fleet.[4]
In 1904 he became commander of the pre-dreadnought battleship Cornwallis which was commissioning with a new crew to operate in the Mediterranean. Hall had a reputation as a strict disciplinarian with an ability to get the best out of a crew, so he was given some of the worst sailors to bring up to scratch. A trick of disaffected sailors was to remove gunsights and throw them overboard, and indeed this happened. Hall instructed the master at arms to look out for two sailors who had previously been friends but who now avoided each other. He took one, told him that the other had confessed they had removed the sights, and the sailor duly confessed. Behaviour on board improved. Although Hall imposed discipline strictly, he also showed concern for the men he commanded and for their welfare, which was unusual for that time. He took particular care for the boys and junior seamen.[5]
In December 1905 he was promoted to captain and appointed by the First Sea Lord, Sir John Fisher, as Inspecting Captain of the new Mechanical Training Establishments, which Fisher had established to give engineering training to ordinary sailors (1906–7). He was next appointed captain of the cadet training ship HMS Cornwall. Although not a conventional warship, this now involved Hall in intelligence work. The ship visited foreign ports, particularly in Germany which was now seen as the navy's greatest potential enemy, and Hall started the tour with a long list of places to investigate. In Kiel he was tasked with discovering how many slips had been constructed for building large vessels. To do this he devised a ruse with the help of the Duke of Westminster, who was visiting the port and agreed to lend his motor boat for the task. Hall and a couple of officers dressed down as sailors and took the yacht on a full speed circuit of the harbour, pretending to break down by the naval dockyard. A concealed camera was then used to take photographs of the installations. More information was discovered by careful questions ashore.[6]
In 1910 two officers, Lieutenant Brandon and Captain Trench, who had been part of Hall's crew gathering intelligence, were sent on a 'holiday' in Germany to collect information about coastal defences by Captain Regnart of the intelligence division. The two were captured and served two-and-a-half years of a four-year sentence, before being pardoned in May 1913 as part of a visit by King George V to Germany. The admiralty then denied any responsibility for what had happened to the pair and their considerable financial loss as a result. When appointed director of intelligence, Hall arranged for them to be compensated.[7]
Hall was appointed to the armoured cruiser
From 1911 to 1913 he served as assistant to the
In 1913 he became captain of the
Queen Mary took part in the battlecruiser squadron's visit to
Hall's health had deteriorated under the stress of continuous sea service, and after three months matters had reached the point where he was obliged to request posting away from the ship.
Director of the Intelligence Divisions
His seagoing career cut short by ill-health, Hall was appointed
Ireland
Easter Rising
Thanks to intercepts from Room 40, Hall was instrumental in the interception of the steamer Aud on 21 April 1916 by HMS Bluebell, which was carrying German arms to Ireland. That morning the man who had organised the arms shipment, Sir Roger Casement, was arrested in Tralee Bay after disembarking from a German U-Boat. Hall was aware of the upcoming Easter Rising in Dublin, but refused to reveal his sources, so that when information of the rising did reach the government, its authenticity was questioned. Hall interrogated Casement and allegedly refused Casement the opportunity of making a public demand for the cancellation of the uprising.[12]
'German Plot'
When the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, intercepted traffic between the US German legation and Berlin dried up as a key source of British intelligence. Less reliable information was used by intelligence chiefs including Admiral Hall, such as 'spy-obsessed loyalist residents in Ireland'. The mass arrests of known
a striking illustration of the apparent manipulation of intelligence in order to prod the Irish authorities into more forceful action...when the British Government was unable to provide convincing evidence of a 'German Plot', nationalist Ireland concluded that it had been invented as retribution for the defeat of conscription.'
In that analysis, Irish public opinion was wrong. Based on the faulty intelligence information made available to them, 'British ministers sincerely believed the threat was real'.[13]
German counter-intelligence
Room 40's decryptions also led to the capture of Captain
In 1917, Hall was awarded the Japanese
Political career
Upon retirement Hall served as a
Despite his retirement from military and political life, Hall by the late 1930s had been identified as an important target person by the National Socialist police apparatus: in early 1940 the
Hall was described by the U.S. Ambassador to the
He was known as "Blinker" on account of a chronic facial twitch, which caused one of his eyes to "flash like a Navy signal lamp". His daughter attributed this to childhood malnutrition. (He had attended a military boarding school in which the boys had to fill their bellies by stealing turnips from neighbouring farms). Today, such a twitch is also thought to be symptomatic of a mild form of
Honours and awards
- Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George
- Companion of the Order of the Bath
- Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star (Japan)
- Commander of the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus (Italy)[16]
- Commander of the Legion of Honour (France)[16]
- Navy Distinguished Service Medal[16]
- Grand Officer of the Order of the Crown of Italy[16]
Notes
- ^ James p. 2-5
- James, William Milbourne (1956). The code breakers of Room 40: the story of Admiral Sir William Hall, genius of British counter-intelligence(Reprint ed.). St. Martin's Press. p. 5. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
- ^ "No. 27263". The London Gazette. 4 January 1901. p. 82.
- ^ James p.5
- ^ James p. 5-6
- ^ James p.7-8
- ^ James p.8
- ^ James p.10-14
- ^ James p. 14-18
- ^ James p. 20
- ^ Beesly. Room 40. p. 36.
- .
- ISBN 978-1-84383-376-5.
- ^ Order of the Rising Sun, conferred 1917 -- "No. 30363". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 October 1917. p. 11322.
- ^ Entry on William Reginald Hall on the Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museums in London).
- ^ a b c d Smith, Gordon (29 December 2010). "FOREIGN DECORATIONS AWARDED TO ROYAL NAVY, London Gazette editions January 1918-December 1920". Naval-History.Net. Retrieved 1 July 2011.
References
- ISBN 0-670-80941-1.
- Beesly, Patrick (1982). Room 40: British Naval Intelligence 1914–1918. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-281468-0.
- James, Admiral Sir William (1955). The Eyes of the Navy: A Biographical Study of Admiral Sir Reginald Hall. London: Methuen & Co.
- Ramsay, David (2008). 'Blinker' Hall: Spymaster: The Man who Brought America into World War I. Stroud: The History Press. ISBN 978-1-86227-465-5.
- A Clear Case of Genius: Admiral Sir Reginald 'Blinker' Hall's Autobiography'. Stroud: The History Press. 2017.
External links
- The Papers of William Reginald Hall are held at Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge and are accessible to the public.
- The Dreadnought Project: Reginald Hall
- First World War.com - Who's Who entry
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Sir William Hall
- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs