Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Henry Dacres Cunningham was a Royal Navy officer. A qualified senior navigator, he became Director of Plans at the Admiralty in 1930. He saw action as Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet during the Second World War with responsibility for the allied landings at Anzio and in the south of France. He served as First Sea Lord in the late 1940s: his focus was on implementing the Government's policy of scrapping many serviceable ships.
Cunningham (centre) with Rear Admiral John Mansfield (left) and King George VI (right).
A convalescent Winston Churchill meets the outgoing and incoming Supreme Commanders in the Mediterranean, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to Churchill's right, and Henry Maitland Wilson, to his left. Behind them stand (from left to right), John Whiteley, Air Marshal Arthur Tedder, Brigadier G. S. Thompson, Admiral Sir John Cunningham, unknown, Sir Harold Alexander, Captain M. L. Power, Humfrey Gale, Leslie Hollis, and Eisenhower's chief of staff, Walter Bedell Smith.
HMS Adventure (M23)
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HMS Adventure, pennant number M23, was an Adventure-class minelaying cruiser of the Royal Navy built in the 1920s that saw service during the Second World War. Her commander between 1928 and 1929 was the future First Sea Lord John H. D. Cunningham. Laid down at Devonport in November 1922 and launched in June 1924, Adventure was the first vessel built for service as a minelayer; she was also the first warship to use diesel engines, which were used for cruising. Adventure first joined the Atlantic Fleet, then was transferred to the China Station in 1935. In World War II, the ship was damaged in 1941 and 1944, and was converted to a landing craft repair in 1944. In 1945 Adventure was reduced to reserve and in 1947 she was sold and broken up for scrap.
Adventure in February 1943