Geoffrey Spicer-Simson

Geoffrey Spicer-Simson (1876–1947) was a Commander in the Royal Navy. He served in the Mediterranean, Pacific and Home Fleets. He is most famous for his role as leader of a naval expedition to Lake Tanganyika in 1915, where he commanded two small ships which destroyed a superior German flotilla. His story was recently retold in a book by Giles Foden called .

Early life

Geoffrey Basil Spicer Simson was born in Hobart, Tasmania, on 15 January 1876 as one of five children. Formerly in the merchant navy, his father Frederick Simson was a dealer in gold sovereigns in India who eventually settled in Le Havre, France, at the age of thirty-one. There he met eighteen-year-old Dora Spicer, daughter of a visiting English clergyman, and on marrying changed his name to Spicer-Simson. In 1874 they moved to Tasmania, having some family there, and ran a sheep farm for five years. Geoffrey although born in Tasmania soon moved to France under his mothers wishes. He and his siblings were sent to schools in England. The eldest, Theodore, became an artist, moving between France and the United States. His youngest Brother, Noel, eventually joined the British army.

He entered the Royal Navy in 1889 at the age of fourteen. He served in the North Borneo Boundary Commission in 1901 and helped in the constructing of several maps and boundaries. His most important position was as captain of a destroyer, which he permitted to collide with a liberty ship, resulting in his being posted to dockside watch-keeping jobs [Military History, December 2001, "Naval Struggle in Darkest Africa] ] . He then went to China and made the first triangulated survey of the Yangtze River 1905-1908. After China, he was posted to Africa and from 1911-1914 in command of a survey ship on the Gambia river. His wife, whom he married in 1912, was Amy Elizabeth, daughter of Edmund and Phoebe Baynes-Reed of Victoria, British Columbia. After his posting in Africa he returned to Britain just a few days before the declaration of war on August 4, 1914. He had a brief tour on a contraband control vessel but only two weeks after taking command one of his gunboats was torpedoed in broad daylight [Military History, December 2001, "Naval Struggle in Darkest Africa] . He was subsequently given an office job in the Admiralty at the beginning of World War I. He was given the department in charge of the transfer of Merchant sailors to the War Navy.

British Naval Expedition

As a result of his African experience Spicer-Simson was given command of an expedition to attack the German naval forces on Lake Tanganyika. Despite the loss of several ships under his command the Admiralty saw nothing to lose sending him to what was considered a sideshow to the events in Europe. [ Military History, December 2001, "Naval Struggle in Darkest Africa] His naval expedition, transported two motor-boats (armed with machine guns and cannons) overland from Cape Town, a distance of 3,000 miles through the Belgian Congo. The two boats, which he named "Mimi" and "Toutou" were then launched on the Lake. Under his personal command he disabled the German "Kingani" and then captured it. It was repaired into British service as "Fifi". He was promoted from Lieutenant Commander to Commander as being the first officer to capture a German ship in the First World War. According to the historian and writer Giles Foden he was noted as rather eccentric - for instance, he often wore a grass skirt and occasionally a self made white canvas skirt, whilst in command of his flotilla and insisted that an Admirals flag be flown outside his mud hut.

With the combined force of "Mimi", "Toutou", "Fifi" and two Belgian ships, Simson's flotilla sank the "Hedwig von Wissman". For this action, Commander Spicer Simson was awarded the D.S.O., but the expedition soon ended in controversy. He refused to send his ships to aid the British Colonial and Belgian Army force in the capture of Mpulungu in present day Zambia. After falling ill and retreating to his private quarters, he was sent to England for medical and mental recovery where he insisted it was the German ship that refused to fight. [Military History, December 2001, "Naval Struggle in Darkest Africa]

Later life

He was later Assistant Director of Naval Intelligence and a naval delegate and French translator at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. In retirement he was involved in hydrographic work and his latter years were spent in British Columbia. He gave a series of lectures on his command in Lake Tanganyika and helped write a National Geographic article on his transportation of the two boats through the jungles of the Congo. He died on 29 January 1947.

Achievements

* China Medal in 1900
* He won the Distinguished Service Order in 1915
* The events of his flotilla at Lake Tanganyika inspired the novel and film The African Queen.

References

* 'Who's who' (1943), London: A. and C. Black; Creagh, Sir O'Moore and Humphris, E.M. (1978), 'The Distinguished Service Order, 1886-1923', London: J. B. Hayward.
* Shankland, Peter (1968), 'The phantom flotilla', London: Collins.
* Military History, December 2001, "Naval Struggle in Darkest Africa"
* Kevin Patience, 'Shipwrecks & Salvage on the East African Coast'