In trying to chronicle the events in Admiral Sir John Jellicoe’s life one is faced with many difficulties, the greatest of which is that hitherto his most important battles have been fought on land, behind closed doors and, as far as the public is concerned, in the dark.

Although Sir John Jellicoe has seen active service in Egypt and in China, has sailed his ships on many seas and gone down into the Valley of the Shadow on no fewer than three occasions, he has nevertheless managed to give valuable years to the Admiralty on shore; and it was during the periods when he became successively Assistant Director of Naval Ordnance, Naval Assistant to the Controller of Navy, Director of Naval Ordnance and Controller of the Navy that his most valuable work was done.

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Another important position behind the scenes which he filled was that of Superintendent of the building of ships of war in private as well as in Royal Dockyards.

The object of this little book is better to acquaint the general public with the man who stands with his hand at the helm of the Ship of England’s destiny, the ship in which we must all sink or swim. Never since the days of Nelson has such a responsibility been vested in one man. Never in the history, not only of our Empire, but of the world, has the issue of the fight for sea power and supremacy been so vital, so tremendous.

What our ships and sailors have accomplished in the past gives us hope for the future, and courage to wait in the silence of the long night that now hides England and her defenders from one another.

But above all we are confident, because we have faith in the man who was sent us with the hour; the man on whom the cloak of the Emir of the Sea—“Emir-al-Bahr”—has fallen.

That this brief sketch of the Sea Lord and his career is altogether unworthy of him I am quite aware. My apology for offering it to the public must be that it is the first attempt to give any coherent account of his life that has been made. A life, as I have already pointed out, which has been lived behind the scenes, devoted to duty, careless of opinion, fearful of applause.

For the details of his career and a brief outline of the work he has done I am indebted to his wife, Lady Jellicoe, who most kindly placed at my disposal the few chronicles she possessed of his services, and gave me all the help she could in my task even to the extent of reading the MSS. of the volume before it was set up in type.

A. A.

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