Richard Onslow

A destroyer captain who took convoys to Russia and Malta, later commanding the 4th Destroyer Flotilla; awarded the DSO with three bars. Richard George Onslow was born on 15 April 1904 at Garmston, Shropshire. He entered the navy in 1918 and commanded the destroyer HMS Gipsy in 1937-38. In 1940, during the fall of France, he took part in an unsuccessful attempt to lift the Belgian government and its gold reserves out of Bordeaux, and narrowly avoided capture. In 1941-42 he commanded the destroyer HMS Ashanti. This was his hardest work: covering convoys to Russia and to Malta. An Arctic convoy ran within reach of German aircraft and U-boats based in Norway, with no room to turn away and, in summer, almost no darkness; the Malta convoys ran through the narrows between Sicily and Tunisia. His first DSO came for the Arctic service in Ashanti. In 1943 he served at the anti-submarine school HMS Osprey, and from November 1943 commanded the 4th Destroyer Flotilla from HMS Quilliam. In 1944 the flotilla struck the Japanese base at Sabang in Sumatra, Operation Crimson, for which he received his third bar to the DSO, gazetted on 27 October 1944. After the war he commanded the training ship HMS Devonshire and the Reserve Fleet, and from 1958 to 1961 was Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth. He served until 1962. He also held the Soviet Order of the Red Banner and the Swedish Order of the Sword. He died at Great Ryton, Shropshire, on 16 December 1975.