Kenneth Dewar Vice - Admiral Kenneth Gilbert Balmain Dewar , CBE , RN ( 21 September 1879 – 8 September 1964 ) was an officer of the Royal Navy . After specialising as a gunnery officer , Dewar became a staff officer and a controversial student of naval tactics before seeing extensive service during the First World War . He served in the Dardanelles Campaign and commanded a monitor in home waters before serving at the Admiralty for more than four years of staff duty . After the war ended he became embroiled in the controversy surrounding the consequences of the Battle of Jutland . Despite this , he held a variety of commands during the 1920s . In 1928 he was at the heart of the " Royal Oak Mutiny " , when as Captain of the battleship " Royal Oak " he forwarded his executive officer ' s letter of complaint about their immediate superior , Rear - Admiral Collard , to higher authority . This came in the wake of a series of incidents aboard ship . All three men were ordered back to Britain , and Dewar and his executive officer requested Courts - martial so that they might defend themselves . The trials were held in Gibraltar and garnered widespread media coverage . Dewar , though found partially guilty , survived with a severe reprimand . His executive officer was found guilty and resigned , while Collard was compelled to resign his commission for provoking the situation . Having then commanded successively the two oldest capital ships in the fleet , Dewar retired on promotion to Rear - Admiral . His memoirs , published as " The Navy from Within " in 1939 , were a vitriolic indictment of the Navy ' s practices . Early life and career . Dewar was born in Queensferry on 21 September 1879 , the son of Dr . James and Mrs . Flora Dewar . In July , 1893 he was nominated as a naval cadet , passed the entrance examination and joined the training ship " Britannia " , where he studied for two years . Two of his brothers joined the navy ; Alfred Charles ( born 1876 ) who was promoted to Captain on the Retired List and was appointed Head of the Historical Section of the Naval Staff , and Alan Ramsay ( born 1887 ) who achieved Flag Rank in 1938 . Dewar performed so well in " Britannia , " that upon graduation , he was appointed Midshipman straight away , which normally required a year ' s service at sea and passing an examination . He joined the protected cruiser " Hawke " on 20 August 1895 . The following year he was appointed to the battleship " Magnificent " on 30 October 1896 . Promoted Acting Sub - Lieutenant , Dewar was confirmed in that rank and promoted to Lieutenant on 8 March 1900 . Upon promotion he was posted to the Devonport destroyer " Osprey " on 15 March . On 12 June he was appointed to the torpedo - boat destroyer " Fervent " . Gunnery officer . Following this period at sea , Lieutenant Dewar was selected to specialise in gunnery duties . His time training at HMS " Excellent " , the gunnery school at Portsmouth , coincided with that of the captaincy of Percy Scott , the renowned gunnery expert . His performance on the two - year course was so impressive that on graduation he was given command of a ship . From 21 July 1903 , Dewar was Lieutenant and Commander of the Chatham - based destroyer " Mermaid " . Dewar became the gunnery officer of the armoured cruiser " Kent " on 24 August 1905 , where he remained until 1908 . Dewar ' s dedication and standard of training became evident when his ship led the Fleet in battle practice firings and gunlayer ' s - test . He was re - assigned to " Excellent " on 19 January 1908 for instruction duties . Soon he was sent to sea again , being made gunnery officer of the battleship " Prince George " on 8 February 1908 . He rejoined " Excellent " on 22 December that year . On 11 June 1909 Dewar was " lent " as gunnery officer to the protected cruiser " Spartiate " for the annual fleet manœuvres . Once the manœuvres were finished , Dewar was made assistant to the Inspector of Target Practice , an important gunnery position at the Admiralty on 17 July . In the same year , he was asked to lecture on the Imperial Japanese Navy , which he had previously had experience of , at the Royal Naval War College at Portsmouth . During his talk , he exhibited an unpalatable forthrightness by saying that the Royal Navy needed more intellectual officers like Togo Heihachiro , implying that there was a dearth of such officers . The President of the College , Lewis Bayly , abruptly terminated his lecture . On 1 January 1910 , Dewar was once more given sea duty as First Lieutenant and Gunnery Officer ( referred to as " 1st and G " ) of " Dreadnought " . " Dreadnought " was still one of the most prestigious postings in the fleet despite the growing number of newer dreadnought battleships and battle cruisers entering service . It was Dewar ' s misfortune during this service to be taken in by the " Dreadnought " hoax on 10 February , in which he escorted a party of practical jokers , that included Virginia Woolf , pretending to be Abyssinian royalty on an official visit to the battleship . However , Dewar befriended the captain , Herbert Richmond , who acted both as a friend and a mentor to him in the following years . With Richmond ' s encouragement , Dewar began a thorough study of naval tactics and strategy which would later continue at the Royal Naval War College . Promotion to commander . Dewar was reappointed to " Dreadnought " on 28 March 1911 , was promoted Commander on 22 June and on 14 December he was appointed for duty at the Royal Naval War College , Portsmouth as an instructor . The next year he was selected to join the newly formed War Staff at the Admiralty , created on First lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill ' s orders in 1912 . He was consequently reappointed for duty at the War College on 2 April 1912 . On 4 March 1913 it was announced that Commander Dewar had been awarded the Gold Medal and Trench - Gascoigne prize by the Royal United Service Institution for his winning essay on the question " What is the war value of oversea commerce ? How did it affect our naval policy in the past and how does it in the present day ? " The final chapter of the paper was suppressed from publication by the Admiralty ; in it Dewar advocated a " distant " blockade in a war with Germany at a time ( 1912 ) when the Royal Navy was still contemplating a " close " blockade of the German coastline . In the event a distant blockade was imposed . Dewar was then and remained unsympathetic to the removal of his concluding chapter ; Dewar ' s reputation as an intellectual within the navy was confirmed when in 1912 , he became one of the founder members of " The Naval Review " , an independent journal of Royal Navy officers . That year Richmond had formed a " Naval Society " with a dozen friends , Dewar among them . After Richmond went abroad on active service , Dewar decided that instead of being a society of purely discussion , it ought publish a journal , to which end he " raised subscriptions for the first issue from some forty or fifty officers of all ranks " . In 1914 Dewar was appointed commander ( second - in - command ) of the battleship " Prince of Wales " , then flagship of the 5th Battle Squadron in the 2nd Fleet ( Home Fleets ) . On 28 July , Dewar married Gertrude Margaret Stapleton - Bretherton , the sister of Evelyn , Princess Blücher , in a service at St . Bartholomew ' s Church in Rainhill on Merseyside . The service was conducted by the Archbishop of Liverpool and the Bishop of Portsmouth . Dewar ' s best man was the Honourable Reginald Plunkett , who later became known as Reginald Plunkett - Ernle - Erle - Drax , and would go on to achieve high rank in the navy . Dewar and Gertrude had one son together , Kenneth Malcolm J . Dewar . First World War . In August 1914 Britain went to war with Germany , and later that year with the Ottoman Empire ( modern - day Turkey ) . " Prince of Wales " remained in the 5th Battle Squadron until 1915 , when with a number of other pre - dreadnoughts she was sent to the Eastern Mediterranean to support the Gallipoli landings , the goal of which was to capture the strategically important Dardanelles Straits , take Constantinople and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war . As second - in - command of " Prince of Wales " , Dewar was present for part of the naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign against the Turkish positions . Following aborted attempts to lend heavy - gunfire support to the troops at ANZAC Cove , Dewar wrote an unofficial memo to the Rear - Admiral commanding the Eastern Mediterranean Squadron , with suggestions for the employment of indirect fire to attack Turkish targets . Dewar heard nothing of his proposals , and it was not until November , 1915 that indirect fire was used with good effect by the bulged cruiser " Edgar " . Following the campaign , in October Dewar was given command of HM Gunnery School , Devonport . It was an important position as large numbers of Reserve and Volunteer Reserve officers either re - qualified or qualified in gunnery duties . After a year Dewar returned to sea in command of the " Abercrombie " class monitor " Roberts " , and joined the Dover Patrol in August , 1916 . In response to the German battle cruiser raids on the British coast , a visible response was called for to quell public anxiety . On 27 May 1916 " Roberts " arrived at Gorleston to act as a guard ship for the port of Yarmouth , in effect acting as a coastal defence battery . " Roberts " fulfilled such duties at Tyneside and in the Thames Estuary for the rest of the war . Once again Dewar was rotated back to shore , and was appointed to the Operations Division of the Naval Staff under first the Jellicoe , and then the Wemyss Boards of Admiralty . Dewar was promoted to the rank of Captain on 30 June 1918 in the Half - Yearly lists and then became Assistant Director of Plans in the Plans Division . On 17 October 1919 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( CBE ) " for valuable services at the Peace Conference , Paris . " Post - war commands . Jutland controversy . While still at the Admiralty , Dewar became embroiled with the controversies surrounding the aftermath of the Battle of Jutland . The manner in which the battle had been fought had come under criticism , with a line drawn between those who supported Sir John Jellicoe , who had commanded the Grand Fleet at the battle ; and those who fell - in behind his then - subordinate , and successor , Sir David Beatty . Dewar followed the Beatty school of thought espoused by his former Captain , Herbert Richmond , that the battle had been lost by the staid admirals of the battleship squadrons . In November , 1920 he and his brother Captain Alfred Dewar ( retired ) were entrusted with compiling the " Naval Staff Appreciation " of the battle , which was completed in January , 1922 . The two brothers had produced a body of work which favoured Beatty , for whom the Dewars ' " capacity for original thinking and literary talents always held an appeal . " Even Richmond , who intensely disliked Jellicoe , and was a confidant of Beatty , agreed with the Committee on Imperial Defence ' s official naval historian , Sir Julian Corbett who wrote that Dewar ' s " facts were , I found , very loose . " The Appreciation , which had originally been intended for distribution around the Royal Navy , was deemed so full of " far - reaching and astringent criticism of Jellicoe " and of new and therefore irrelevant tactical theory that Beatty and his Board of Admiralty were compelled to decide against its publication . Indeed , Admirals Roger Keyes and Ernle Chatfield were moved to write to Beatty that if published the Appreciation " would rend the service to its foundations " . The final straw had been the very public heckling of Dewar when he lectured from his Appreciation to the twenty students of the Senior Officers ' War Course at the Royal Naval College , Greenwich . It was decided to expurgate the existing document , which had been removed from circulation and release it . It was published as " The Narrative of the Battle of Jutland " in 1924 . All copies of the original Appreciation were ordered destroyed in 1928 and before the " Narrative " had been published Dewar and his brother had already been barred access to the original . However , he continued to have a major impact on the historiography of the Battle of Jutland by serving throughout the 1920s as Winston Churchill ' s naval consultant on submarine - warfare . Churchill wrote an anti - Jellicoe tract in his " World Crisis " , Volume III which in large measure shared Dewar ' s views on tactics and even some diagrams . Although Dewar would later become a supporter of the Labour Party , after Churchill was passed over for a cabinet position in 1931 Dewar wrote to him on 16 November , " I am very sorry to see that you are not in the new Cabinet . I had hoped you would go to the Admiralty and do very necessary work for the Navy . " Sea duty . After four years of duty at the Admiralty , Dewar returned to sea in 1922 . He was fortunate after the " Geddes Axe " ( the systematic contraction of the Naval Service to a size substantially smaller than its pre - war level ) and his controversial tenure at the Admiralty that he was still considered worthy of sea duty , " the " qualification for promotion to flag rank . He was appointed on 9 May to command the " C " class cruiser " Calcutta " , flagship on the North America and West Indies Station . In 1923 Dewar was given command of " Calcutta ' s " sister - ship on the same station , HMS " Cape Town " . While on the station he had occasion to act as Flag Captain to the Commander - in - Chief on the station , pay calls on cities as diverse as Halifax , Nova Scotia , Quebec City and Boston while cruising the Eastern Seaboard of North America . During the U . S . blockade of the Mexican port of Tampico in 1924 Dewar and " Cape Town " cancelled their planned cruise of the Caribbean to adequately represent the British government at Vera Cruz , proceeding there on 4 January . On 15 May 1924 Dewar was relieved in command of " Cape Town " by Captain G . H . Knowles , DSO . On 2 May 1925 he returned to the Admiralty as Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence . After two years in the position he was relieved in June , 1927 and given , from 15 October command of the battleship " Royal Oak " , flagship of the Rear - Admiral in the 1st Battle Squadron , Mediterranean Fleet . The Rear - Admiral , 1st Battle Squadron was Bernard St . George Collard . " The Royal Oak Mutiny " . As Flag Captain to Admiral Collard , Dewar was technically Collard ' s chief staff officer as well as captain of the " Royal Oak " . A good working relationship between Dewar and the second - in - command of the battle squadron was necessary . Notwithstanding , Collard on occasion acted imperiously and tactlessly on his flagship , causing friction with Dewar and his executive officer , Commander Henry Martin Daniel , DSO . At a dance on the quarterdeck on 12 January 1928 , Collard openly lambasted Royal Marine Bandmaster , Percy Barnacle , and allegedly said " I won ' t have a bugger like that in my ship " in the presence of ship ' s officers and guests . Dewar and Daniel accused Collard of " vindictive fault - finding " and openly humiliating and insulting them before their crew , referring to an incident involving Collard ' s disembarkation from the ship on 5 March where the admiral had openly said that he was " fed up with the ship " ; Collard countercharged the two with failing to follow orders and treating him " worse than a midshipman " . Dewar and Daniel , feeling that morale was sinking due to these public displays , wrote letters of complaint which were given to Collard on 10 March , on the eve of a major exercise . Collard forwarded the letters to his superior , Vice - Admiral Sir John Kelly ; he immediately passed them on to the Commander - in - Chief Admiral Sir Roger Keyes . On realising that the relationship between the two and their Flag Officer had irretrievably broken down , Keyes ordered the exercise postponed by fifteen hours and ordered a Court of Inquiry to be convened . As a consequence , Collard was ordered to strike his flag in " Royal Oak " and Dewar and Daniel were ordered back to Britain . The Admiralty was informed of the bare facts on the 12th and Keyes proceeded to sea with the Mediterranean Fleet for the exercise as planned . The press picked up on the story worldwide , describing the affair — with some hyperbole — as a " mutiny " . Public attention reached such proportions as to raise the concerns of the King , who summoned First Lord of the Admiralty William Bridgeman for an explanation . Having arrived back in England , Dewar and Daniel gave their version of events at the Admiralty , and put in writing requests for reinstatement in their positions in " Royal Oak " , or trial by Court - martial . Having received Keyes ' full dispatch on 16 March , the Board of Admiralty resolved that Dewar and Daniel should undergo trial by Court - martial as soon as possible at Gibraltar , where " Royal Oak " was due to be berthed . Consequently Dewar and Commander Daniel departed Southampton in the P & O liner " Malwa " with their counsel , Mr . Day Kimball , and their wives , on the 24th and reached Gibraltar in the evening of the 27th . The two officers were immediately attached to the Gibraltar base ship , HMS " Cormorant " in accordance with naval custom . It was arranged that Daniel would face Court - martial first , on 30 March , and Dewar ' s would follow at its conclusion . The Courts - martial were held publicly in hangar " A " of the aircraft carrier " Eagle " . Because ten Captains from the fleet sat as members of the Court , the departure of the Mediterranean Fleet was delayed until the end of the proceedings . Out of four charges which Daniel faced , two related to writing an allegedly subversive letter ( the complaint ) and the latter two to publicly reading it out to officers of " Royal Oak " . Dewar consequently faced the charge of having forwarded said subversive letter . The court found Daniel " guilty " on all four charges in the afternoon of 3 April and dismissed him from his ship and ordered him to be severely reprimanded . Dewar ' s own Court - martial began on 4 April . The Court trying him was composed of five Rear - Admirals and eight Captains . Dewar pleaded " not guilty to two charges of accepting and forwarding a letter subversive of discipline and contrary to King ' s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions " . Dewar had the opportunity of cross - examining Rear - Admiral Collard over the incident of the dance and the disembarkation . Collard admitted to saying certain things but refused to say that he had used improper words and not in earshot of anyone other than the Captain . In his defence , Dewar attacked one of the charges against him , namely that of contravening Article 11 of King ' s Regulations ; he declared the charge invalid because his actions did not " bring him into contempt " , and from witness testimony he portrayed himself as having acted in the best interests of his ships , his actions against Rear - Admiral Collard having been made out of a sense of duty and loyalty and not malice . Discounting one charge , he said , meant that the first had to fail as well . The Court reached its verdict on 5 April . The first charge was found proven , the second unproven , and Dewar was therefore acquitted of acting against regulations . However , despite his spotless record , when the Court sentenced him he was dismissed HMS " Cormorant " , and severely reprimanded — a potentially career - destroying result . However , there was some popular support for his continued service in the navy . Questions were asked in the House of Commons as to whether Dewar or Daniel would be found new positions . The First Lord , Bridgeman , stated that they would be found positions in the Navy as soon as vacancies arose . Dewar ' s career was reprieved for the time being . Daniel however resigned from the service , and following an unsuccessful attempt at a career in journalism , disappeared into obscurity in South Africa . Post - " Royal Oak " . Dewar was once more given duty at sea . However , he was to be relegated to second - rate commands for a man of his seniority . Much to the surprise of many , on 25 September 1928 it was announced that from 5 November Dewar would be given command of the battle cruiser " Tiger " , the oldest of her type still in service and engaged primarily in training . However , it demonstrated the Admiralty ' s continued albeit conditional faith in him . He commanded " Tiger " until he was given command of HMS " Iron Duke " the following year . On 29 May 1929 he was made a naval aide - de - camp ( ADC ) to King George V . However , Dewar ' s time in the Navy was drawing to a close . On 4 August he was finally promoted to Rear - Admiral , and the following day he was retired . Promotion to flag rank also saw the end of his duty as ADC to the King . On the day of his promotion he was also granted the Good Service pension of £150 per annum . Standing for Parliament . In the 1931 General Election , Dewar stood as a Labour party candidate in Portsmouth North , where he lost against the incumbent by 14 , 149 votes . Once more however Dewar was unable to escape controversy , having put up posters around the naval city which raised indignation among many sailors and officers . The posters , which Dewar himself called " propaganda sheets " , were titled " Admiral Dewar ' s Election News " , and carried the statement " The British Navy at Jutland in 1916 beat the ex - Kaiser ; and at Invergordon in 1931 it beat Mr . Montagu Norman " , and featured prominently a depiction of the former Kaiser of Germany in civilian clothing in front of a sea battle , with the Governor of the Bank of England , Montagu Norman , looking on . A notice beneath the picture read : Dewar was accused of comparing Jutland to the Invergordon Mutiny , which rankled with many servicemen who had fought at Jutland but had taken no part in the 1931 mutiny in Northern Scotland . He claimed in his defence – a statement issued to the press on 29 October 1931 – that he had had nothing to do with the design or production of the poster , which had been published by the National Cooperative Publishing Society . Later , however , Dewar wrote , " I deeply regret that this picture should ever have been associated with my name . " At this point he had already lost at the polls by a substantial margin , the election having taken place on the 27 October . Later life . As part of Navy Week in 1933 on 5 August , Dewar was invited to open a naval paintings exhibition at the Ilford Galleries in London . He took the opportunity to praise the Washington Naval Conference and its successor , and to criticise the size of the Treaty battleship . On the Retired List of the Royal Navy , he was promoted to the rank of Vice - Admiral ( Retd . ) on 31 July 1934 . In early 1939 Dewar ' s memoirs were published . Entitled " The Navy from Within " he recounted his life story , while at the same time criticising severely the manner in which the Royal Navy trained its officers , blaming defects in said training for the naval failure at Gallipoli . However , his account was criticised as being far too harsh and at points hypocritical , for after condemning the naval system of training he then makes many mentions of naval officers who he himself considered to be excellent . In a letter to " The Times " , Dewar complained that their reviewer was taking far too much issue with the author , which as the reviewer pointed out , " a review of an autobiography must necessarily deal largely with the author himself " . Responding to a review of " The Navy from Within " in " The Naval Review " which questioned the prominence of " The Royal Oak Affair " in the book , Dewar responded by stating ; Dewar , despite the attached stigma of the mutiny and criticism of his memoirs , was still held in high regard by many , and as war approached he wrote a number of letters to " The Times " criticising the cost of the Air Raid Precautions network , which attracted much support in the " Letters " pages in that newspaper . During the Second World War he returned to the Admiralty , working under his brother Alfred in the Historical Section of the Training and Staff Duties Division . After the war ended , Dewar would win one final victory when he sued the author and publisher of a book on Admiral Keyes for libel in 1953 . In the book written by Brigadier - General Aspinall Oglander was a letter from Keyes to the King ' s private secretary , Lord Stamfordham in which Keyes accused Dewar of having made contact with the press in his defence . Dewar denied this and the High Court of Justice agreed with him , finding in his favour . The solicitors acting on behalf of Aspinall - Oglander and the publishers , Hogarth Press Ltd . , agreed to apologise in court and paid Dewar damages and expenses . In 1957 he returned to his earlier theme on the failings of officer training , in a three - part exposition on the Dardanelles Campaign for " The Naval Review " , the journal he had helped found over forty years previously . In the concluding article , published in October , 1957 , Dewar wrote that the failure of the Navy to adequately support the Army at Gallipoli " is to be found in the system of training officers which consciously or unconsciously suppressed independent thought and suggestions from subordinates . " Despite his later close association with Churchill , he criticised the former First Lord ' s unrealistic expectations and also Lord Fisher ' s inability to rein him in for want of a naval staff ; and Admiral of the Fleet ( at the time Commodore ) Roger Keyes for actively trying to gain support for forcing the straits again instead of acting as chief of staff and only advising the Naval Commander at the Dardanelles . Dewar was given the last rites on 8 September 1964 and died at his home in Worthing , Sussex . He was buried at St Bartholomew ' s Church , Rainhill , Merseyside on 12 September .