VC Action: Commodore Augustus Willington Shelton Agar (1890-1968) VC DSO was a noted Royal Navy officer in both World War One and World War Two. He was 29 years old, and a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy during the North Russia Relief Force when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.
In 1918 Agar was asked by Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming, head of the foreign section of the British Secret Intelligence Service, to volunteer for a mission in the Baltic Sea, where Coastal Motor Boats (CMBs) were to be used to ferry British agents back and forth from Bolshevik Russia.
Agar set up a small base at Terijoki just inside Finland, close to the Soviet frontier. From here he undertook secret missions to drop off and retrieve British agents on the coast of the Bay of Petrograd. To do this, his boats had to cross Bolshevik minefields and pass by a number of forts and ships guarding the entrance to the Bolshevik naval base at Kronstadt and to Petrograd, now St. Petersburg.
Agar felt that his small force should be doing more than acting as a shuttle service. The Bolsheviks had seized much of the Russian fleet at Kronstadt, and Agar considered these vessels a menace to British operations and took it upon himself to attack the enemy battleships.
He set out with his two boats, HM Coastal Motor Boat 4 and another, on 17 June 1919. One had to turn back before completing its mission but Agar continued into the bay. The battleships were not in the harbour though. CMB4 penetrated a destroyer screen and was closing on a larger warship further inshore when CMB4, whose hull had been damaged by gunfire, broke down. She had to be taken alongside a breakwater for repairs and for twenty minutes was in full view of the enemy. The attack was then resumed and a Russian cruiser, the 6,645 ton Oleg was sunk, after which Lieutenant Agar retired to the safety of the open bay under heavy fire. For this he was awarded the Victoria Cross and Agar was promoted to Lieutenant Commander on 30 June 1919.
On 18 August 1919, Agar took his remaining boat against the Russians, acting as guide-ship to a flotilla of six others, leading them through the minefields and past the forts. Agar's boat was ordered to stay outside the harbour, and the attack was led by Commander Claude Dobson. They entered Kronstadt harbour, this time sinking a battleship, 17,400 ton pre-dreadnought Andrei Pervozvanny (subsequently salvaged) and a submarine depot ship, the 6,734 ton Pamiat Azova.
For his part in this action Agar was awarded the DSO. Dobson and another RNB officer Gordon Steele received Victoria Crosses. |
