MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Admiral Takes Command of all British Armed Forces
Admiral Sir Michael Boyce is taking command of all British armed forces as the first Royal Navy Chief of Defence Staff since the late Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse retired in 1988, six years after he conducted the 1982 Falklands campaign as overall military commander of the Task Force, from Fleet Headquarters in Northwood in London.
Admiral Boyce, GCB, OBE, is a submariner by training who served as a young officer on the Conqueror some years before that submarine torpedoed and sank the Argentine cruiser Belgrano in the 1982 Falklands Conflict.
By that time Michael Boyce was in the Ministry of Defence as a Captain in the Directorate of Naval Plans. He took command of HMS Brilliant when this frigate returned from the 1982 South Atlantic campaign. Admiral Boyce had also earlier served on the submarine HMS Superb which shadowed the Argentine aircraft carrier Veinte Cinco de Mayo in 1982.
Sir Michael, aged 57, succeeds (on February 16) General Sir Charles Guthrie, one of whose last visits abroad as Chief of Defence Staff took him to the Falkland Islands. After 44 years' army service General Guthrie, 61, now goes into retirement to consider lucrative offers from the commercial world.
Admiral Boyce takes over the top job -- salary 140-thousand pounds (210-thousand dollars) a year -- after 40 years in the Royal Navy which he joined in 1961. He spent much of his early service at sea in six different submarines. After serving as Senior Naval Officer in the Middle East and then in the Ministry of Defence, he became Rear Admiral in charge of sea training and was NATO Commander of the Anti-Submarine Warfare Strike Force.
He was knighted in 1995, promoted to the rank of Admiral and Commander- in- Chief Naval Home Command, then Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet, and also NATO Commander-in-Chief Eastern Atlantic and Commander of Allied Naval Forces in North-Western Europe.
He became professional head of the Royal Navy as First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff in 1998. He has already been succeeded as First Sea Lord by Admiral Sir Nigel Essenhigh, 55, who in turn has been succeeded as Commander in Chief Fleet by Admiral Sir Alan West, 52. As the youngest Commander in the Royal Navy at the time, only 33, Alan West was captain of the frigate HMS Ardent which was struck by ten Argentine bombs, set on fire, and sank on May 21st, 1982, with the loss of 22 killed and another 30 of his crew injured. Commander West was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
Harold Briley, London
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