“He remained heavily involved with naval operations as Allied troops fought their way through France, Belgium and Holland.”

By Brian Izzard

THIS MONTH MARKS the 80^th anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation, the remarkable operation that saw the escape of more than 338,000 Allied servicemen.

The anniversary will be followed days later by another D-Day commemoration. Churchill, Eisenhower and Montgomery are among the names that come to mind when great events of the war in Europe are recalled. Yet one name is usually missing, that of Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay.

Not only was Ramsay the mastermind of the exodus from the French port in 1940 and the Normandy landings four years later, he also played a key role in the invasions of North Africa in 1942 and Sicily the following year.

Why Ramsay has not received the public recognition he deserves is something of a mystery. He was killed in a plane crash on Jan. 2, 1945, never to see the ultimate victory in Europe he had helped to shape. The accident has never been fully explained. Yet unlike Montgomery, for example, the admiral was not a showman military leader. He disliked personal publicity, even dreading sessions with press photographers. Yet had fate not taken a certain course, Ramsay might never have even served in the Second World War.

The son of a baronet brigadier general, Ramsay joined the Royal Navy as a 15-year-old cadet in 1898. In the First World War he commanded a destroyer in the Dover Patrol. In the years that followed, he rose in rank and enjoyed an outstanding career. In 1935 he was promoted rear admiral and accepted the post of chief of staff to the commander-in-chief of the Home Fleet, Admiral Sir Roger Backhouse. It proved to be a huge mistake.

Ramsay and Backhouse had been friends from their early days in the navy, but they soon clashed. Ramsay, obsessed with efficiency, felt he could not carry out his duties properly because Backhouse was a workaholic and effectively operated as his own chief of staff. Relations soured so much that Ramsay likened his superior in private to Mussolini. He soon asked to be relieved as chief of staff – a request that shocked the higher reaches of the service.

After that, Ramsay was left to wither on the vine, his career effectively over.

In July 1938, he was finally given the news he feared: He would be placed on the retired list in the rank of vice admiral.

As war loomed in 1939 fate intervened. Ramsay was too valuable to lose in a crisis. He was informed that if hostilities broke out he would be appointed flag officer-in-charge at Dover. And the person who made the appointment was none other than Backhouse, who had since become the First Sea Lord. Backhouse would be in his post for less than 10 months. Poor health forced the workaholic admiral to resign and he died soon afterwards.

The early months of the war saw huge numbers of troops and amounts of equipment being sent to France from England. Dover was one of the busiest ports in southern England. Ramsay’s headquarters was in Dover Castle, or rather below it in the labyrinth of tunnels that had been carved out centuries earlier.

The so-called phoney war ended abruptly on May 10, 1940 when Germany launched its invasion of France and the Low Countries, with Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers and Panzer divisions creating havoc. As soon as he learned of the offensive, Ramsay ordered four vessels from Dover to carry demolition teams to the Netherlands and Belgium to destroy harbour facilities that could be used by the Nazis.

The enemy advance was so swift that by May 22, the ports of Calais and Boulogne were soon in danger. Despite fierce resistance they fell days later.

Ramsay next switched his focus to the Dunkirk area, where British and French troops were being encircled by a German pincer movement.

With British forces in Europe facing certain annihilation, Ramsay honed plans for a massive seaborne rescue of the trapped army, dubbed Operation Dynamo.

At exactly 6:57 p.m. on May 26, the Admiralty ordered Ramsay to launch the evacuation of Dunkirk, with “the greatest vigour.” The most optimistic assessment was that up to 45,000 troops might be saved over two days, after which the enemy was expected to roll in and capture the remaining Allied soldiers.

In fact, Ramsay kept the operation going until June 4, saving 338,682 British, French, Belgian and Dutch personnel. Ramsay’s destroyers brought back the highest number, 103,399, followed by merchant ships, 74,380, and minesweepers, 31,040. Around 850 vessels of all shapes and sizes took part in Dynamo and nearly 240 were lost. Ramsay’s destroyer fleet paid a high price with six sunk and 23 damaged.

Rightly, Ramsey is seen as the saviour of Dunkirk. The evacuation could so easily have been a disaster; its success is a reflection of the admiral’s character. To Ramsay, attention to detail always was paramount, in matters both great and small. Even as a junior officer, he was always immaculately dressed. He strove to make his ship the best in the fleet. He could even write pages on the art of painting a vessel. He chose his senior staff carefully. Anyone he inherited who could not live up to his high standards did not last long. Skilled at organizing, he also knew the art of delegating.

His later successes in organizing the invasion fleets for North Africa (Operation Torch) and Sicily (Operation Husky) led to him being appointed naval commander-in-chief for the Allied landings in Normandy. With more than 6,000 ships taking part, the maritime component of D-Day, dubbed Operation Neptune, would be the greatest amphibious offensive in history.

D-Day was originally set for June 5, but appalling weather forced Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, to postpone it. The Allied campaign in France was hanging in the balance; Ramsay revealed the gravity of the crisis in a letter to his wife.

“We’ve been having a particularly anxious and trying time the last two or three days owing to the weather having turned sour and we’ve had to make some difficult decisions and accept considerable risks or rather take them,” he wrote. “I can only pray that they may prove justified for the lives of hundreds of thousands are at stake.”

Of course, the landings eventually occurred on June 6. As many as 156,000 soldiers were put ashore that day; millions more would follow them into France in the weeks to come.

But Ramsay’s role did not end with the success of D-Day. He remained heavily involved with naval operations as Allied troops fought their way through France, Belgium and Holland.

His fatal flight on Jan. 2, 1945, from an airfield near Versailles, should have taken him to Brussels for a meeting with Montgomery. His aircraft crashed shortly after take-off.

Ramsay’s wife, Margaret, received nearly 400 letters, 30 telegrams and many other messages. President Roosevelt and Eisenhower were among those who paid tribute. Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory also had been killed in an air crash in November 1944.

Field Marshal Montgomery paid tribute to both men:

“They were not to live to see the fruits of their labours, but when this business is all over, and the world is once more at peace, we must not forget the part that was played by Bertie Ramsay and Leigh-Mallory – a great sailor and a great airman …’

Brian Izzard’s new biography, Mastermind of Dunkirk and D-Day, The Vision of Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, published by Casemate, is out now.