Rear Admiral Sir Morgan Morgan-Giles was elected in 1955 when his rank was:
Captain or below M C Giles DSO OBE GM RN.
His obituary, printed in the Daily Telegraph of 5 May 2013, read:
Rear-Admiral Sir Morgan Morgan-Giles, who has died aged98, was a naval officer highly-decorated in the war and went on to become acolourful Conservative MP for Winchester.
He was mentioned in despatches four times and, inSeptember 1941, awarded the George Medal for “gallantry and undaunted devotionto duty” during bomb and mine disposal work while serving at HMS Nile, thenaval base at Ras el-Tin Point, Alexandria. At the end of a war during which hewas recruited by Fitzroy MacLean to run arms to Tito’s partisans in Yugoslavia,Morgan-Giles was awarded a DSO for “courage, outstanding leadership anddevotion to duty” – notably during an attack on the Croatian island of Lussino.
From 1964, on the benches at Westminster, such feats sawhim greeted by affectionate Labour cries of “Send a gunboat”; the genialMorgan-Giles duly steamed into action with all guns blazing on behalf of hisbeloved Service. He condemned the decision to withdraw East of Suez “as a sopto the Left wing”; roundly advocated a British presence beside the Americans inVietnam; and supported the construction of a fifth Polaris nuclear submarine.
Such views won him acclaim on the Tory back benches, butafter the Conservative election victory in 1970 Edward Heath failed to offerhim a junior post. Apart from cosmetic changes, Morgan-Giles found that LordCarrington’s defence policy differed little from that of Labour, particularlyafter it had endorsed the scrapping of the aircraft carrier Eagle.
He was no less forthright when Labour resumed power fouryears later. While in hospital after a riding accident, he wrote to JamesCallaghan, the prime minister, of “the cold, silent, teeth-clenched fury” amongservicemen about a pay review board which “did not seem to know, in bluntnautical language, whether it’s on its arse or elbow. A previous 'Former NavalPerson’ [Churchill] used to ask for and achieve 'action this day’. Is there anyreason why you cannot do the same?”
In lighter tone, he complained that Wrens only receivedthreepence extra a day after four years’ good service: “That is not much togive a girl for saying 'Yes, Sir’ all day and then 'No, Sir’ all night.” Yet heopposed Wrens serving on warships because “woman’s eternal role is to createlife and nurture it; a fighting man must be prepared to kill. Women dowonderful things to men but combat duty to defend us should not be one of them.Vive la difference.” As for homosexual law reform, this was “a queers’charter”, he declared bluntly, and further evidence of Britain’s degenerationand loss of influence.
Morgan Charles Morgan-Giles was born plain Morgan Gileson June 19 1914, elder son of FC Giles, a racing yacht architect. YoungMorgan’s earliest clear memory was of a small boat his father had built himwhile on sick leave from the Navy after the First World War. He was educated atClifton, where he demonstrated his ability to work the system when he wanted tocrew for his father in a sailing race but was told that he must attend acricket match between Clifton and Tonbridge. After dutifully passing throughthe turnstile at Lord’s, the boy took the train down to Ryde, on the Isle ofWight, where father and son won the Prince of Wales Cup.
Joining the Navy at 18 under the public schools’cadetship scheme, Morgan first sailed in the training cruiser Frobisher to theWest Indies and the Baltic. He was then appointed to the Australian destroyerVoyager before serving in Cumberland, Suffolk and Cornwall on the China stationbefore returning home to join the torpedo school at HMS Vernon.
After the declaration of war in 1939 Morgan-Giles was inthe cruiser Arethusa when she covered the evacuation of Norway, and then tookpart in the attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir .
He was next involved in an eccentric plan to launchfireships against German transports massing at Calais and Boulogne – which wasabandoned – before being sent to coordinate mine disposal work in the SuezCanal. During six months at besieged Tobruk, he laid mines and landed guardsmenfor special patrols. It was during this period in North Africa that he wasawarded the GM.
After an encounter in Cairo with MacLean, who wasliaising with Tito’s partisans, Morgan-Giles was posted to run arms suppliesfrom Bari, on the Italian coast, to the Dalmatian island of Vis, 120 milesaway. There he had responsibility not only for the incoming supplies but alsofor the co-ordination of commandos and motor gunboats which attacked the enemyat night – as well as liaising with Tito’s naval commander. The partisan leadermade such an impression that Morgan-Giles named one of his horses “Broz”.
As the war in Europe ended Morgan-Giles was posted tothe Far East. On leave in Australia, he married Pamela Bushell, a nurse whoselater inheritance of £500,000 was to give him a security and freedom of actionrare for naval officers. This also enabled her to join him with their sixchildren on many postings when most other naval families would have stayed athome. “Yes. Morgan does have a wife in every port,” she would say. “And I amthat wife.”
In 1947 he was sent on a joint Services staff course,then had two years in Trieste as naval liaison officer at the British Armyheadquarters in the disputed territory.
From 1950 to 1951 Morgan-Giles found himself commandingChieftain in the First Destroyer Flotilla during the Persian oil crisis; he wasnext appointed captain of naval intelligence, Far East, and then of theDartmouth training squadron. His final and proudest seagoing command was thecruiser Belfast, flagship of the Far East Fleet, though there was a slightcloud when two Chinese were found to have brought a large cache of drugs onboard.
On being promoted rear-admiral and appointed presidentof the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, Morgan-Giles realised that furtherpromotion was doubtful. He had already bought a house and a farm in Hampshire,and was musing that being an MP must be “a jolly good occupation for someonewho has retired and has nothing else to do,” when Peter Smithers, the MP forWinchester, announced that he was stepping down.
The Admiralty warned that Morgan-Giles could not seekadoption as a serving officer and that, if he left only to be rejected, hecould not expect to return to the Service. Nevertheless, in what he describedas “a moment of madness”, Morgan-Giles handed in his resignation to theMinistry of Defence, having performed his official duties as Admiral Presidentof the Royal Naval College at Greenwich that morning. He then spent an agonisingevening in Winchester awaiting the outcome of the selection process.
In the by-election campaign that followed, he had theadvantage of being a local man in a safe seat . After election, the new memberdrew a high place in the ballot for private members’ bills. Although he firstconsidered a bill amending the law on abortion, which David Steel was tointroduce a couple of years later, he eventually decided on one to permitpostal voting; it was blocked by Labour members.
Within six months there was a general election and, dulyreturned, Morgan-Giles was regularly on his feet harrying Harold Wilson’sdefence secretary Denis Healey. Since he supported Ian Smith, the rebel leaderin Rhodesia, and backed Enoch Powell after his “rivers of blood” speech, there wasno place for him on a Heath front bench. However he played an important part in“Operation Sea Horse”, which created a trust to save and run Belfast until shewas steered into the reassuring embrace of the Imperial War Museum.
He was also notably diligent in constituency matters,pursuing problems with the same zeal as he showed over naval issues. Hecampaigned for government financing of structural maintenance of the nation’scathedrals, but met with considerable opposition for his support of the M3 motorway.
After retiring from the Commons in 1979, he continued tobe as outspoken as ever in pithy letters to The Daily Telegraph. He told Heathto “pipe down – or jump overboard” during the Thatcher years, and expostulatedthat it was no wonder the prisons were so full when a man received a month injail for pinching a nurse’s bottom, adding “Our nurses are so pretty.”
Morgan Morgan-Giles was appointed MBE in 1942, OBE in1943 and knighted in 1975. After the death of his first wife in 1966 hemarried Marigold Lowe, who died in 1995.
Rear-Admiral Sir Morgan Morgan-Giles, born June 19 1914,died May 4 2013