Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought
By According to Judge Smith:
“Jackie Fisher was England’s greatest admiral after Nelson, and was responsible for the creation of the Dreadnought, which was launched nearly exactly 100 years to the day of the start of the trial,” the judge wrote in an e-mail message. “Nevertheless, he has been airbrushed out of history.”
I’m not sure that either of those is the case. Surely Fisher deserves some credit for revitalizing the Royal Navy at the beginning of the twentieth century, but it’s not as if all-big gun ships would have failed to appear if he hadn’t been around. South Carolina and Michigan were already designed when Dreadnought was laid down, as was Satsuma. Moreover, Fisher had his share of disasters, including battlecruisers that exploded at the drop of a pin and useless light cruisers intended to foray into the Baltic Sea. I doubt the assertion that he’s been airbrushed out of history, either; he is featured quite prominently in Massey’s excellent books about the German and British battleships, and remains well known among naval enthusiasts.
Nevertheless, kind of cool…