page_title: Christopher Cradock
section_title: Command and flag rank
hierarchical_section_title: Christopher Cradock / Early life and career / Command and flag rank
caption_attribution_description: AWM caption&#160;: "This image shows the moment Commander C Samson of the Royal Naval Air Service took off from HMS HIBERNIA in his modified Shorts S.38 “hydro-aeroplane” to be the first pilot to take off from a ship underway at sea. The S.38 T.2 aircraft had air-bag floats to enable landing on water and was launched via a trolley-shuttle system off of a ramp which stretched from Hibernia’s bridge to bow, over her forward 12 inch guns."
context_page_description: Sir Christopher "Kit" George Francis Maurice Cradock KCVO CB SGM was a British Rear-Admiral of the Royal Navy. He earned a reputation for great gallantry.
  Appointed to the royal yacht, he was close to the British royal family. Prior to the First World War, his combat service during the Mahdist War and the Boxer Rebellion was all ashore. Appointed Commander-in-Chief of the North America and West Indies Station before the war, his mission was to protect Allied merchant shipping by hunting down German commerce raiders.
  Late in 1914 he was tasked to search for and destroy the East Asia Squadron of the Imperial German Navy as it headed home around the tip of South America. Believing that he had no choice but to engage the squadron in accordance with his orders, despite his numerical and tactical inferiority, he was killed during the Battle of Coronel off the coast of Chile in November when the German ships sank his flagship.
context_section_description: On 1 February 1900 he was appointed in command of the third-class cruiser HMS Alacrity, which was posted to later that year to the China Station during the Boxer Rebellion. He commanded a mixture of British, German and Japanese sailors during the capture of the Taku forts on 17 June, led a contingent of British and Italian sailors into the Tientsin on 23 June, and then led the naval brigade that relieved Vice-Admiral Edward Seymour's troops besieged in the Pei-yang Arsenal three days later. Cradock was promoted to captain effective 18 April 1901 and also received the Prussian Order of the Crown, 2nd Class with swords as a result of his actions. Alacrity arrived back in Britain on 32 July 1901 and Cradock was placed on half-pay.
  On 24 March 1902 he was posted to the protected cruiser HMS Andromeda on the Mediterranean Station, where from June that year he served as flag captain to Rear-Admiral Sir Baldwin Wake Walker who commanded the fleet's cruiser squadron. Cradock was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 26 June. He assumed command of the armoured cruiser HMS Bacchante on 19 December and Wake Walker shifted his flag to the ship the following day. When King Edward VII visited Malta on 2 June 1903, he appointed Cradock a Member of the Royal Victorian Order. Off the coast of Sardinia, Cradock saved Prince Vudhijaya Chalermlabha, then serving as a midshipman in the Royal Navy, from drowning in April 1904. After the Dogger Bank Incident, Wake Walker commanded the cruisers, including Bacchante, shadowing the Russian Baltic Fleet as it steamed through the Mediterranean in October en route to the Far East. On 17 January 1905, Cradock assumed command of the armoured cruiser HMS Leviathan, but was invalided home on 17 June. He was on sick leave until September and was then placed on half-pay.
  Cradock became captain of the battleship HMS Swiftsure on 17 July 1906 and was relieved on 6 August 1908, publishing his last book, Whispers from the Fleet, in 1907. During this time the Royal Navy was riven by the feud between the reforming First Sea Lord, Admiral Jackie Fisher and the traditionalist Admiral Charles Beresford and their followers. While Cradock's position on the issues dividing the navy are not positively known, a passage from Whispers from the Fleet may offer a clue: "... we require – and quickly too – some strong Imperial body of men who will straightway choke the irrepressible utterings of a certain class of individuals who, to their shame, are endeavouring to break down the complete loyalty and good comradeship that now exists in the service between the officers and the men; and who are also willing to commit the heinous crime of trifling with the sacred laws of naval discipline". After leaving command, he was again put on half-pay. He was appointed Naval Aide-de-Camp to Edward VII in February 1909 although he remained on half-pay. On 1 July Cradock was appointed in command of the Royal Naval Barracks, Portsmouth and promoted to Commodore second class while retaining his duties as aide-de-camp. Edward VII died on 6 May 1910 and Cradock stayed on until the end of October to assist his newly crowned son, King George V.
  In the meantime he had been promoted to rear-admiral on 24 August 1910, and was relieved of his command in October. Still on half-pay Cradock reported to the Royal Hospital Haslar on 24 February 1911 with kidney troubles and discharged himself on 7 March to attend a staff course at the Royal Naval War College at Portsmouth that lasted until 23 June. He came in sixth out of seven students, and was noted as "very attentive, but sick 1/3 of the term". On the 24th Cradock escorted visitors aboard a merchant ship to the Coronation Fleet Review at Spithead. He became second-in-command of the Atlantic Fleet on 29 August, hoisting his flag aboard the predreadnought battleship HMS London. When the ocean liner SS Delhi ran aground during the night of 12/13 December near Cape Spartel, Morocco, smashing all of her lifeboats, Cradock was ordered to take London and the armoured cruiser HMS Duke of Edinburgh
caption: The first take-off by an airplane from a moving ship, 2 May 1912. Hibernia's bow and flying-off ramp at bottom left.
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