Vice Admiral

Vice Admiral

Vice admiral is a senior naval rank of a three-star flag officer, which is equivalent to lieutenant general in the other uniformed services. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral...

 Sir Louis Edward Stewart Holland Le Bailly KBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

, CB

Order of the Bath

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

  (18 July 1915 – 3 October 2010) was a Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 officer who became Director-General of Intelligence and later a writer.

Naval career

Le Bailly was born the son of Robert Francis Le Bailly and Ida Gaskell Le Bailly (née Holland). He attended the Britannia Royal Naval College

Britannia Royal Naval College

Britannia Royal Naval College is the initial officer training establishment of the Royal Navy, located on a hill overlooking Dartmouth, Devon, England. While Royal Naval officer training has taken place in the town since 1863, the buildings which are seen today were only finished in 1905, and...

, Dartmouth

Dartmouth, Devon

Dartmouth is a town and civil parish in the English county of Devon. It is a tourist destination set on the banks of the estuary of the River Dart, which is a long narrow tidal ria that runs inland as far as Totnes...

 between 1929 and 1932 and joined HMS Hood

HMS Hood (51)

HMS Hood was the last battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy. One of four s ordered in mid-1916, her design—although drastically revised after the Battle of Jutland and improved while she was under construction—still had serious limitations. For this reason she was the only ship of her class to be...

 as a midshipman. He attended the Royal Naval Engineering College

Royal Naval Engineering College

The Royal Naval Engineering College was a specialist establishment for the training of Royal Navy engineers. It was founded as Keyham College in 1880, new buildings were opened in Manadon in 1940 and the old college site at Keyham closed in 1958...

 in Keyham between 1933 and 1937 returning to HMS Hood as an engineer Lieutenant. He left the Hood in 1940 and served aboard HMS Naiad

HMS Naiad (93)

HMS Naiad was a Dido-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was built by Hawthorn Leslie and Company , with the keel being laid down on 26 August 1937. She was launched on 3 February 1939, and commissioned 24 July 1940....

, surviving the sinking of that ship in 1942. After sering at the RN Engineering College Le Bailly was posted to the battleship HMS Duke of York

HMS Duke of York (17)

HMS Duke of York was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy. Laid down in May 1937, the ship was constructed by John Brown and Company at Clydebank, Scotland, and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 4 November 1941, subsequently seeing service during the Second World War.In...

 in 1944 where he served as Lieutenant Commander and was present at the Japanese Surrender.

Le Bailly served at the Admiralty from 1946 and aboard HMS Bermuda from 1950. He subsequently served at the Admiralty

Admiralty

The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

 from 1955 to 1958 and as Staff Officer to Dartmouth Review Committee in 1958. He was appointed Assistant Engineer-in-Chief in 1958 and Naval Assistant to Controller of the Navy in 1960. He went on to be Deputy Director of Marine Engineering in 1964, Naval Attaché and Head of the Royal Navy staff in Washington D. C. in 1967 and Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (Intelligence) in 1971 before retiring from the Royal Navy in 1972.

In retirement he was appointed Director-General of Intelligence at the Ministry of Defence

Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

 in 1972. Later he became vice chairman of the Institute for Study of Conflict, and chairman of the Civil Service Selection Board.

He is survived by his wife, Pamela (née Berthon) (Sir Louis died on their 64th wedding anniversary, having been wed on 2 October 1946 at Holy Trinity Brompton Church

Holy Trinity Brompton Church

Holy Trinity Brompton with St Paul's, Onslow Square is an Anglican church in Brompton, London, United Kingdom. The church consists of three church buildings, HTB Brompton Road, HTB Onslow Square and HTB Queen's Gate, as well as being the home for Worship Central, St Paul's Theological Centre and...

), daughters Susanna, Charlotte and Belinda, and their children.

Works

Le Bailly was a prolific writer with four published books;

• A Man Around The Engine (1990),
• Old Loves Return (1994),
• We Should All Look To Our Moat (2007)
• From Fisher To The Falklands (1991).