Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton

Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton, (20 April 1884 – 4 September 1964) was a Royal Navy officer. He was in command of the submarine when, under attack from German vessels, it ran aground off the Danish coast during the First World War. Despite this incident, he rose to senior command in the Second World War and retired in 1947. His final appointment had been as Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.

Early life and career Layton was the son of a Liverpool solicitor, George Layton, and was educated at Eastman's Royal Naval Academy. He joined the Royal Navy as a naval cadet on 15 May 1899 on HMS Britannia. Following this he served as a midshipman aboard cruisers in the English Channel and off the south coast of the United States.

Layton took his lieutenant's course and was promoted to that rank on 30 November 1905. He then he joined the submarine branch of the navy, in which he had his first command. From 1910 he did two years general service and returned to submarines in 1912, commanding several of them during the First World War.

First World War On 18 August 1915 Layton's submarine, , was ordered to the Baltic to assist the Russians, but he ran aground on Saltholm off the Danish coast. E13 was destroyed early the following morning by a German torpedo boat, killing half his men. Layton and the others were interned at Copenhagen. Three months later, disguised as a local sailor, he managed to return to Britain. In 1916–17, he commanded the experimental steam submarine S-1. At the end of the war he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.

Interbellum Layton was promoted to captain on 31 December 1922 and held the post of Chief of Staff to the Rear Admiral Submarines. In the late 1920s he was appointed Deputy Director of Operations at the Admiralty and in 1930 he attended a course at the Imperial Defence College. From 1931 to 1933, he was posted as Chief of Staff on the China Station. He commanded the Royal Naval Base at Portsmouth from 1934 to 1936, when he became Director of Personnel Services at the Admiralty.

Layton then transferred to battlecruisers, firstly . Then, following another period at the Admiralty, he commanded the Battlecruiser Squadron, flying his flag on , from August 1938 until August 1939. Layton was then appointed second-in-command of the Mediterranean Fleet, firstly under Admiral Sir Dudley Pound and later under Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. He is recorded as commanding the 1st Battle Squadron, consisting of the battleships , , and , on the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939.

Second World War

Layton took command of the China Station in September 1940. There was much to be done. Defences and organisation were inadequate; harbour facilities were inefficiently run with many transports left waiting in exposed anchorages and Layton was horrified. He immediately set about improvements to radar, civil defence and Colombo's air raid system. The Japanese returned to the Pacific, and on 11 April Layton sent a signal that the enemy had withdrawn from Ceylon to Singapore.

The defence of the island of Ceylon had not been a total fiasco, even though there was criticism that the radar system had been switched off as it was a Sunday. The Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm squadrons on the island, although with few effective aircraft (50 Hawker Hurricanes against some 300 Japanese aircraft) plus some obsolete or unsuitable ones (Catalinas, Blenheims and Fulmars) provided some defence. Up to 19 Japanese aircraft were shot down during the Colombo raid, for the loss of 27 Hurricanes and 12 other aircraft. There was a similar number of Japanese aircraft shot down over Trincomalee for the loss of 11 Hurricanes and Fulmars (of 25 available aircraft).

Arthur Bryant, in Turn of the Tide, puts the contribution made by Admiral Layton in a very positive light. "Thanks to the timely action of the island's Commander-in-Chief what had happened in the Ceylon skies over Easter proved one of the turning points of the war... Through the foresight shown by the Chiefs of Staff (in appointing one supreme Commander, Layton, to the island) and the presence of mind of the two admirals to whom the island and the Eastern Fleet had been entrusted, the air defences of Ceylon – the key to the Indian Ocean – remained unbroken and the fleet safe at sea. For the first time since the start of the Japanese war a major assault by the Rising Sun had been repulsed."

Later life Following the war, Layton returned to the United Kingdom as Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, a post he held until his retirement in 1947.