Roger Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Roger Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes

Royal Navy officer

Date of Birth: 04-Oct-1872

Place of Birth: Punjab, India

Date of Death: 26-Dec-1945

Profession: writer, politician, soldier

Nationality: United Kingdom

Zodiac Sign: Libra


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About Roger Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes

  • Admiral of the Fleet Roger John Brownlow Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes, (4 October 1872 – 26 December 1945) was a Royal Navy officer.
  • As a junior officer he served in a corvette operating from Zanzibar on slavery suppression missions.
  • Early in the Boxer Rebellion, he led a mission to capture a flotilla of four Chinese destroyers moored to a wharf on the Peiho River.
  • He was one of the first men to climb over the Peking walls, to break through to the besieged diplomatic legations and to free the legations. During the First World War Keyes was heavily involved in the organisation of the Dardanelles Campaign.
  • Keyes took charge in an operation when six trawlers and a cruiser attempted to clear the Kephez minefield.
  • The operation was a failure, as the Turkish mobile artillery pieces bombarded Keyes' minesweeping squadron.
  • He went on to be Director of Plans at the Admiralty and then took command of the Dover Patrol: he altered tactics and the Dover Patrol sank five U-Boats in the first month after implementation of Keyes' plan compared with just two in the previous two years.
  • He also planned and led the famous raids on the German submarine pens in the Belgian ports of Zeebrugge and Ostend. Between the wars Keyes commanded the Battlecruiser Squadron, the Atlantic Fleet and then the Mediterranean Fleet before becoming Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.
  • During the Second World War he initially became liaison officer to Leopold III, King of the Belgians.
  • He went on to be the first Director of Combined Operations and implemented plans for the training of commandos and raids on hostile coasts.

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