John Catterall Leach, (1 September 1894 – 10 December 1941) was a British naval officer. He was the only captain of the

battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...

during its short period in service.

The ''Bismarck''

Very soon after the ''Prince of Wales'' entered active service in 1941, the ship fought under Leach's command in the

Battle of the Denmark Strait The Battle of the Denmark Strait was a naval engagement in the Second World War, which took place on 24 May 1941 between ships of the Royal Navy and the ''Kriegsmarine''. The British battleship and the battlecruiser fought the German battlesh ...

, and suffered damage fighting the German battleship ''Bismarck''. However, damage inflicted by the ''Prince of Wales'' caused the ''Bismarck'' to lose fuel, forcing the latter to attempt to return to a base in occupied France. Despite a proposal to court-martial Leach for breaking off the action with the ''Bismarck'' after the ''Hood'' had sunk, he was awarded the

Distinguished Service Order The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly of other parts of the Commonwealth, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typ ...

for his part. In the 1960 film ''

Sink the Bismarck! ''Sink the Bismarck!'' is a 1960 black-and-white CinemaScope British war film based on the 1959 book ''The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck'' by C. S. Forester. It stars Kenneth More and Dana Wynter and was directed by Lewis Gilbert.Weiler, A.H ...

'' Leach was played by actor

Esmond Knight Esmond Penington Knight (4 May 1906 – 23 February 1987) was an English actor. He had a successful stage and film career before World War II. For much of his later career Knight was half-blind. He had been badly wounded in 1941 while on active ...

, who had been on the ''Prince of Wales bridge with Leach during the Battle of the Denmark Strait and was partially blinded when the ship was hit by ''Bismarck'''s gunfire.

Force Z

In late 1941, ''Prince of Wales'' formed part of

Force Z Force Z was a British naval squadron during the Second World War, consisting of the battleship , the battlecruiser and accompanying destroyers. Assembled in 1941, the purpose of the group was to reinforce the British colonial garrisons in the ...

sent to

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. Off the coast of Malaya, she was sunk by the

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese. Leach died as he went down with his ship. His son was

Henry Leach Admiral of the Fleet (Royal Navy), Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Conyers Leach, (18 November 1923 – 26 April 2011) was a Royal Navy officer who, as First Sea Lord, First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff during the early 1980s, was instru ...

(1923–2011), who was

First Sea Lord The First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff (1SL/CNS) is the military head of the Royal Navy and Naval Service of the United Kingdom. The First Sea Lord is usually the highest ranking and most senior admiral to serve in the British Armed ...

of the Royal Navy during the

Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...

Notes

References

Bibliography

* *Hein, David. "Vulnerable: HMS ''Prince of Wales'' in 1941". ''Journal of Military History'' 77, no. 3 (July 2013): 955–989. Abstract online: http://www.smh-hq.org/jmh/jmhvols/773.html * *Willis, Matthew B. 'In the Highest Traditions of the Royal Navy: The Life of Captain John Leach, MVO, DSO'. The History Press, 2011. 1894 births 1941 deaths Royal Navy personnel killed in World War II Companions of the Distinguished Service Order Members of the Royal Victorian Order Royal Navy officers Royal Navy officers of World War I Royal Navy officers of World War II Captains who went down with the ship {{UK-navy-bio-stub