page_title: William Boyle, 12th Earl of Cork and Orrery
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: William Boyle, 12th Earl of Cork and Orrery / Naval career / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of British light cruiser HMS Aurora at anchor off the coast of Liverpool.
context_page_description: Admiral of the Fleet William Henry Dudley Boyle, 12th Earl of Cork, 12th Earl of Orrery, GCB, GCVO was a British Royal Navy officer and peer. He served as a junior officer on the China Station during the Boxer Rebellion and went on to serve in the First World War initially as a staff officer during the Dardanelles Campaign and as then commander of the Red Sea Patrol: in that capacity he led a six-day bombardment of the Turkish held port of Jeddah and worked closely with T. E. Lawrence in support of the Arab Revolt. In the inter-war years he was Commander-in-Chief, Reserve Fleet, President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich and Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet. After succeeding a cousin and becoming Earl of Cork in 1934, he became Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.
  Boyle also served in the Second World War, first as head of planning for Operation Catherine, an abortive naval offensive in the Baltic Sea proposed by Winston Churchill which aimed to cut off the flow of iron ore from Sweden. He then became commander designate of a planned Anglo-French expedition to assist the Finns in the Winter War they were waging against a Soviet attack: this expedition was also called off.
context_section_description: Boyle served in the Second World War initially as head of planning for Operation Catherine, a naval offensive in the Baltic Sea proposed by Winston Churchill which aimed to cut off the flow of iron ore from Sweden and isolate Germany from Scandinavian trade. The operation was intended to take place in the spring of 1940 but was abandoned in January 1940.
  Boyle then became commander designate of a planned Anglo-French expedition to assist the Finns in the Winter War they were waging against a Soviet attack: Finland agreed to Soviet terms in March 1940 and this expedition was also called off.
  In April 1940 Boyle was given command of a naval force with a mission to retake the strategic port of Narvik in Norway from the Germans: he flew his flag from the cruiser, HMS Aurora. Boyle was in favour of an immediate storming of Narvik using both military and naval forces, but the more cautious army commander, Major General Pierse Joseph Mackesy, had orders not to attempt an opposed landing. Boyle bombarded Narvik and then abandoned the mission in the face of strong German opposition. Boyle provided covering fire for the landing of troops of the French Foreign Legion at Bjerkvik in May 1940 and, although Narvik was briefly captured, he was asked to support the withdrawal of all allied troops in June 1940. He was awarded the Norwegian Order of St. Olav for this operation on 13 October 1942.
caption: The cruiser HMS Aurora which Boyle used as his flagship for operations off Norway during the Second World War
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