Bronze bust of Lord Cunningham, looking at Nelson's column and Whitehall

Andrew Browne Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope (7 January 1883–12 June 1963), familiarly known as "ABC", was the most famous British admiral of World War II, winning distinction in Mediterranean battles in 1940 and 1941, then serving as First Sea Lord from 1943 to 1946. He was the older brother of Alan Cunningham.

He was a highly decorated officer during the First World War. He was Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean from 1939 to 1942, and in 1943; Allied naval commander Expeditionary Force under General Eisenhower in 1942, and served as First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff from 1943-5. He was made a Knight Commander of the Bath in 1939, and a Knight of the Thistle in 1945. In the same year he was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Cunningham of Hyndhope, of Kirkhope, county Selkirk. In 1946 he was admitted to the Order of Merit and advanced to a viscouncy as Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope. He acted as Lord High Steward at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Upon his death without issue in 1963, both of these titles became extinct.

During the evacuation at the end of the Battle of Crete when Cunningham was determined that the "navy must not let the army down", when army generals feared he would lose too many ships, Cunningham famously said, "It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition".

References

• Admiral A.B. Cunningham, A Sailor’s Odyssey (London, 1952)
• J. Winton , Cunningham: The Greatest Admiral since Nelson (London, 1998)

External links

• Royal Navy page on Cunningham
• Biography at the Royal Naval Museum Library.
• 1943 bromide print by Yousuf Karsh at the National Portrait Gallery, London.