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  • 21 Aug, 2019

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Guy Hallifax
Rear-Admiral Guy Waterhouse Hallifax CMG (21 June 1884 – 28 March 1941) was a South African military commander, who was recruited by the South African government to organise a navy.

Hallifax joined HMS Britannia in 1899 and served as a Naval Advisor in Turkey, for which he was awarded the Order of the Medjideh (3rd class). During the First World War served as first lieutenant and torpedo lieutenant on board HMS Ajax. After being attached to the Inter-Allied Commission in Berlin he served in HMS Valiant, Home Fleet, from 1921 to 1923. He then attended various disarmament meetings at Geneva and was promoted captain in 1924. Two years later he commanded the cruiser HMS Carlisle, of the China Squadron, remaining there until 1928. He was later appointed naval attaché in Paris and also served in that capacity in Madrid, Brussels and The Hague. He returned to active naval duties when he was appointed to command of HMS Malaya from 1932 to 1934. In 1935 he became Director of the Signal Division of the Admiralty, and was promoted Rear-Admiral, retired, in the same year.

Rear-Admiral Hallifax went out to South Africa as secretary to Lord Clarendon, who was then Governor-General in South Africa, in 1936, and continued in this capacity for the first four months of the governor-generalship of Sir Patrick Duncan. On the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he was recruited by the South African government to organise a navy, which was named the Seaward Defence Force.

South African Navy

As Director of the Seaward Defence Force, he established a small fleet of minesweepers and anti-submarine vessels for coastal defence, and organised naval detachments in the major ports. On the 15 January 1940, the new Seaward Defence Force (SDF) took over responsibility for naval defence from the Royal Navy. Cdr James Dalgleish was appointed as commander of one of the newly formed Port Divisions (later renamed detachments). Dalgleish was soon thereafter to rise to command the SDF on the death of Hallifax.

Promotions

  • Confirmed in the rank of Sub-Lieutenant 15 July 1903.
  • Sub-Lieutenant to Lieutenant 15 January 1905.
  • Commander to Captain 30 June 1924.
  • Captain to Rear-Admiral 3 October 1935.
  • Placed on the Retired List 4 October 1935.

Death

He was killed on the 28 March 1941 in an aeroplane crash at Baboon Point, 74 kilometres (46 mi) north of Saldanha while returning from a tour of inspection to the newly established naval detachment in Walvis Bay.

Awards

References

  1. ^ "Rear Admiral Guy Waterhouse Hallifax". Retrieved 3 January 2015.
  2. ^ Uys, Ian (1992). South African Military Who's Who 1452-1992. Fortress Publishers. p. 98. ISBN 0-9583173-3-X.
  3. ^ Harris, C J (1991). War at Sea: South African Maritime Operations during WW2. Issue 5 of South Africans at war. Ashanti Publishing. p. 9. ISBN 9781874800163.
  4. ^ "No. 34518". The London Gazette (Supplement). 9 June 1938. p. 3689.
  5. ^ Steyn, Leon (28 March 2021). "ADMIRAL HALLIFAX AND THE LODESTAR ACCIDENT: 80 YEARS AGO". South African Naval Museum. Retrieved 7 May 2021.
  6. ^ "Admiral Hallifax and the Lodestar Accident: 80 Years Ago". South African Military History Society - Journal. Retrieved 15 April 2023 – via samilitaryhistory.org.
  7. ^ Bisset, W. M. (1992). "Unpublished Chapters from the Official History of the SA Naval Forces During the Second World War". Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies. 22 (1). doi:10.5787/22-1-333. ISSN 2224-0020.
  8. ^ "No. 27754". The London Gazette. 13 January 1905. p. 328.
  9. ^ "No. 32952". The London Gazette. 4 July 1905. p. 4630.
  10. ^ "No. 32952". The London Gazette. 1 July 1924. p. 5083.
  11. ^ "No. 34204". The London Gazette. 4 October 1935. p. 6216.
  12. ^ Goosen, JC (1973). South Africa's Navy The First Fifty Years. Cape Town: WJ Flesch & Partners. p. 228. ISBN 0-949989-02-9.
  13. ^ Ross, Charles. "South African Legion - DEATH OF REAR ADMIRAL G. W. HALLIFAX CMG". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 15 April 2023. On 28 March 1941 Rear Admiral Guy Hallifax (first Director of the Seaward Defence Force) was returning from a staff visit to Walvis Bay when a South African Airways Lockheed 18-08 Lodestar, Registration ZS-AST en-route to Cape Town, flew into the high ground near Elands Bay in dense fog. There were no survivors. Those killed are buried in a mass grave in the Plumstead Cemetery in Cape Town. CREW: 102796 Captain Frederick Wilhelm Le Roux (Pilot & Aircraft Commander). P/203109 Lieutenant Johannes Petrus Meyer (Co-Pilot). 29383 Air Sergeant John William Shelly (Flight Engineer). 96365 Air Sergeant Andries Petrus van Wijk (Flight Engineer) PASSENGERS: 7000 Rear Admiral Guy Waterhouse Hallifax CMG (Director of the South African Seaward Defence Force). P/13349 Colonel Harold Ernst Cilliers (Deputy Director of the South African Coastal Defence Corps). P/40727 Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Pitcairn (Deputy Director Technical Services, Coastal Defence Corps). C. P. McMichall. Building contractor. Morris Kaplan. Building contractor. A, Kendierski. Building contractor. The South African Agency of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains the grave.

See also

Military offices
New title Director, South African Naval Forces
1940–1941 		Succeeded by
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