Francis Cromie

Acting Captain Francis Newton Allen Cromie, CB, DSO (30 January 1882 – 31 August 1918, Petrograd) was a distinguished British Royal Navy officer, military diplomat, and the de facto chief of British Intelligence operations in northern Russia for the British Naval Intelligence Division. At the outbreak of World War I he was commanding officer of the British Royal Navy China Hong Kong submarine flotilla, and from 1915 assumed command of the British submarine flotilla in the Baltic.

Early life and naval career Born in Duncannon, Ireland, he was the son of British army captain Francis Charles Cromie of the Hampshire Regiment (later Consul-General in Dakar, Senegal). On 31 December 1915 he was promoted to the British Royal Navy rank of Commander. Some Cheka scouts were now also proceeding up onto the embassy first floor, panic and protests broke out, and they were met with gunfire. One Cheka scout was killed and another wounded. Cheka scouts continued searching the embassy building, and with their rifle butts repelled embassy staff from getting close to the corpse of Captain Cromie, which the Cheka had looted and trampled. at Helsinki in Finland, officially reported the murder of Captain Cromie and the attack on the British embassy to the United States Department of State, that the entirety of British embassy personnel in Petrograd had been arrested, and similar arrests had simultaneously taken place in Moscow. a Red Cross nurse who had served on the Eastern Front, recounts the events witnessed by her sister-in-law, who was in the British embassy at the time of the attack:

"My sister in law ran out into the hallway and as she emerged she saw Captain Cromie running down the steps two at a time, straight towards her. Behind him at the top of the stairs, stood a man firing at the Captain. Several bullets whizzed by her head and crashed through the glass of the entrance doors behind her. Her horror seemed to root her to the spot and suddenly, just as Captain Cromie reached the last stair, he pitched forward as if he had stumbled, staggered a little and then crashed down backwards with his head on the bottom step. My sister in law ran to him and lifted his head. He was moving his eyelids and she felt something warm trickling down the fingers of her right hand with which she was holding up his head from underneath. Suddenly a terrific blow made her drop Captain Cromie's head and sent her spinning against the right hand wall. The man who had struck her grabbed her and ran her up the stairs hitting her violently from time to time and finally pushing her into the Chancery room where she found all of the members of the Embassy and the Consulate standing with hands raised above their heads. After being searched for arms, the Embassy staff were forced to hand over their papers and then marched downstairs and on to the street." They had one daughter, Dolores Anthea, born June 1907, in Fareham, Hampshire, England. His widow, Gladys (Gwladys) Catherine Josephine, remarried in June 1920.

Posthumous award On 17 September 1918 Captain Francis Cromie was posthumously awarded the Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) "in recognition of his distinguished service in the Allied cause in Russia, and of the devotion to duty which he displayed in remaining at his post as British Naval Attaché in Russia, when the British Embassy was withdrawn. This devotion to duty cost him his life."

Dramatic representations Captain Cromie was portrayed by actor Barry Stokes in two episodes of popular 1983 drama Reilly, Ace of Spies, in which he is depicted as aiding British agents Sidney Reilly and George Alexander Hill, culminating in his defence of the embassy.

Literature