Эрик Гасконье Робинсон: Герой Галлиполи и Атлантики.

English Royal Navy officer and recipient of the Victoria Cross

Rear Admiral Eric Gascoigne Robinson (16 May 1882 – 20 August 1965) was a Royal Navy officer and a recipient of the Victoria Cross. He earned his award by going ashore and single handedly destroying a Turkish naval gun battery while a lieutenant commander with the fleet stationed off the Dardanelles during the Gallipoli campaign in the First World War. After these exploits, he was wounded on the front line on the Gallipoli Peninsula, but recovered and served continuously for the remainder of the war and into the Russian Civil War. In 1939 aged 57, he again volunteered for military service and spent three more years at sea, commanding convoys during the Battle of the Atlantic.

Eric Gascoigne Robinson was born in 1882 at Greenwich in Kent, to John Lovell Robinson and Louisa Aveline Gascoigne. John was the chaplain of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich and Eric's youth was spent in preparation for a life at sea. Robinson was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead before joining HMS Britannia aged fifteen in 1897 and rapidly progressed to the battleship and then the first class protected cruiser , in which he took part in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion in China. It was here, aged 18, that he saw his first action with the relief force, being wounded in action, mentioned in despatches and gaining a reputation as a daring and resourceful officer. He remained in China serving on a Yangtze gunboat for several years before returning to England and becoming a torpedo specialist at , Portsmouth, in 1907. In 1910, Robinson was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and spent his time between HMS Vernon, the depot ship and the cruisers and on active service. In 1913, he married Edith Gladys Cordeux, with whom he had three children. Robinson was slightly injured in a train accident shortly after his wedding, but soon recovered and was dispatched to the Mediterranean Sea at the outbreak of the First World War on board the old battleship a position between Kum Kale and Yeni Shehr on the southern shore of the Dardanelles. This position had withstood fire from the battleships of the Allied fleet during the preceding weeks. Robinson was suggested as the leader of a commando force of sailors and Royal Marines tasked with destroying the battery and withdrawing in good order. Robinson accepted the mission without hesitation. His force landed undetected early in the morning of 26 February, destroyed two small artillery pieces and made fast progress towards the main battery before being pinned down by Turkish snipers in the mid afternoon. The white naval uniforms of the sailors proved an easy target for the Turks and casualties mounted as Turkish reinforcements were brought up to cut off the raiding party. Instead of withdrawing in the face of this threat, Robinson marched his men through gullies and came out close to a small rise behind the main battery. The open ground of the rise was covered by several Turkish snipers, but realising the importance of removing the artillery overlooking the sea passage, Robinson delegated command of the party to a junior officer and made the climb alone, dodging bullets in his white uniform until he crested the rise unhurt, emerging a few minutes later and starting back apparently unconcerned by the increasingly heavy gunfire directed at him. He was said to be "strolling around under heavy rifle fire like a sparrow enjoying a bath from a garden hose". The battery had been ungarrisoned, and Robinson was able to lay fuses which destroyed the large 9.4" main gun and two anti aircraft emplacements within the position. Withdrawing in good order, Robinson evaded the Turkish reinforcements and then directed gunfire from the fleet onto their positions, including a force garrisoning an ancient tomb, inflicting heavy casualties.

Robinson volunteered in April for an even more dangerous mission, following the Turkish capture of submarine HMS E15 which had stranded below the guns of Fort Dardanus near Kepez Point. All efforts to destroy this craft had so far failed and it was considered vital for naval morale that it was not salvaged by the enemy. Robinson took command of two picket boats from the battleships and , each armed with two torpedoes mounted on the gunwales in dropping gear, and entered the Dardanelles under cover of darkness on 18 April. Caught in a blaze of searchlights, and under heavy fire from the Turkish artillery and machine guns, both boats miraculously arrived unscathed. A carelessly directed Turkish searchlight briefly illuminated E15. The boat from HMS Majestic under the command of Lt Goodwin seized the opportunity and attacked. The first torpedo missed, and seconds later the boat was struck by a shell that blew away much of her stern, mortally wounding one of her crew and causing her irreparable damage. Undeterred, Goodwin went in again and scored a direct hit with his second torpedo, just forward of the conning tower, wrecking the submarine. Observing his consort's plight, Robinson did not hesitate, steaming to the stricken vessel and rescuing her crew before escaping downstream to Mudros. It was estimated that the Turks fired at least 500 heavy calibre rounds of ammunition at the two boats in just a few minutes. A German officer present noted that "I have never on the course of the war seen an attack carried out with such pluck and fearlessness".

In August, Robinson was sent to Anzac Cove as a naval liaison officer and on his second day there, was badly wounded near the front line, forcing his evacuation to the UK, where King George V presented him with his medal at Buckingham Palace. Returned to the Mediterranean in December 1915 following his recuperation, he took over the coastal monitor HMS M21, in which he shelled Turkish positions throughout Egypt and Palestine and was awarded another mention in despatches and the Egyptian Order of the Nile, 4th Class. Returning to England in the summer of 1917, he narrowly missed selection for Keyes's operations against Zeebrugge and Ostend owing to his war wounds. He commanded the secret D. C. B. Section of the Royal Navy's Signals School, Portsmouth at Calshot. This led to a distant posting in the Caspian Sea during the Russian Civil War, fighting the Bolshevik forces along the Russian coastline. Robinson commanded a squadron of coastal torpedo boats in the Caspian and forced the surrender of several enemy forts through aggressive tactics. These achievements would later win him the Imperial Russian Order of St. Anne, 2nd Class. His most notable achievement at this time was leading a small coastal motor boat inside the harbour of Fort Alexandrovsk, where he sank a barge and prompted a mass surrender from the garrison. by the King for his Caspian Sea service, promoted again to captain and posted to HMS Iron Duke. Robinson then served in a number of training establishments and dockyards, as well as a brief stint with the Far East Fleet, during which he received the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasure, Third Class for his services. In 1925, he was inducted into the Freemasons and remained a prominent member of the Navy Lodge for the rest of his life. The organisation still commemorates him in their publications. He retired at age 51 in 1933 as a rear admiral, but when the Second World War broke out, Robinson immediately offered his services and for three years, commanded convoys across the Atlantic Ocean. For this service, he was later presented with the Norwegian King Haakon VII's Freedom Cross. prompted a second retirement in 1942.

On 26 February 2015, one hundred years after his VC winning deed, a commemorative paving stone was laid outside Robinson's former home at 1 Diamond Terrace, Greenwich. At the event Commander Operations, Rear Admiral Matthew Parr said he was in awe of Lt Cdr Robinson’s "selfless actions" and added: "His courage, determination and fortitude in the face of overwhelming enemy action remain an example to us all; this commemorative stone will serve as a permanent memorial to a remarkable man."