Background

Cunningham was born in Rathmines in the south side of Dublin on 7 January 1883

Education

After starting his schooling in Dublin and Edinburgh, Cunningham enrolled at Stubbington House School, at the age of ten, beginning his association with the Royal Navy. After passing out of Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, in 1898, he progressed rapidly in rank.

Career

Cunningham served as a midshipman in the South African War and as commander of a destroyer in the Mediterranean in World War I. In 1937 he was made a vice admiral and assigned as second in command in the Mediterranean. Because of his convoy work and fighting in the defense of Malta in World War II, he was promoted to admiral in 1940. In 1943, as commander in chief of the Allied forces in the Mediterranean, Cunningham received the unconditional surrender of the Italian fleet at Valetta, Malta, and was then recalled to London and made Admiral of the Fleet and First Sea Lord. He organized the British fleet for the war against Japan, and on Sept. 27, 1945, was knighted by King George VI. In 1946 he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, and in 1956 he was made a Knight of the Grand Cross in the Order of the Bath.

Achievements

• Cunningham commanded a destroyer during the First World War and through most of the interwar period. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and two Bars, for his performance during this time, specifically for his actions in the Dardanelles and in the Baltics.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Sailor’s Odyssey

    (First published in 1951, this is the autobiography of a d...)

    1951

Connections

Brother:

Alan Cunningham

References

• A Life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham: A Twentieth Century Naval Leader (Cass Series: Naval Policy and History) Cunningham was the best-known and most celebrated British admiral of the Second World War. He held one of the two major fleet commands between 1939 and 1942, and in 1942-43, he was Allied naval commander for the great amphibious operations in the Mediterranean. From 1943 to 1946, he was the First Sea Lord and a participant in the wartime conferences with Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt and the US Chiefs of Staff, deliberating the global strategy for Allied victory. He also led a very active public life for almost twenty years after his retirement in 1946. Cunningham's papers are abundant for the period 1939-63 and are supplemented here by Cabinet and Admiralty records, papers of his service contemporaries and of Churchill, and by memories of his family and friends, as well as extensive US archives and private papers.