Roger Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes

Born the second son of General Sir Charles Patton Keyes of the Indian Army and Katherine Jessie Keyes (née Norman), Keyes told his parents from an early age: "I am going to be an Admiral". After being brought up in India and then the United Kingdom, where he attended preparatory school at Margate, he joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in the training ship on 15 July 1885. He was appointed to the cruiser , flagship of the Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Station, in August 1887. and to lieutenant on 28 August 1893, he joined the sloop on the Pacific Station later that year. After returning home in 1897 he became commanding officer of the destroyer at Plymouth in January 1898. ==China==

Keyes was then posted out to China to command another destroyer, , in September 1898, transferring to a newer ship, , in January 1899. In April 1899 he went to the rescue of a small British force which was attacked and surrounded by irregular Chinese forces while attempting to demarcate the border of the Hong Kong New Territories. He went ashore, leading half the landing party, and, while HMS Fame fired on the besiegers, he led the charge which routed the Chinese and freed the troops. In June 1900, early in the Boxer Rebellion, Keyes led a mission to capture a flotilla of four Chinese destroyers moored to a wharf on the Peiho River. Together with another junior officer, he took boarding parties onto the Chinese destroyers, captured the destroyers and secured the wharf. Keyes was one of the first men to climb over the Peking walls, to break through to the besieged diplomatic legations and to free them. For this he was promoted to commander on 9 November 1900. Keyes later recalled about the sack of Beijing: "Every Chinaman ... was treated as a Boxer by the Russian and French troops, and the slaughter of men, women, and children in retaliation was revolting". ==Diplomatic and submarines service==

From his return to the United Kingdom and for a couple of years, Keyes served briefly in command of various ships in the instructional flotilla. He was appointed in May 1901 to the command of the destroyer serving in the Devonport instructional flotilla. In January 1902 he was appointed in command of the destroyer , which took Bat crew and her place in the flotilla, and four months later he again brought his crew and was appointed in command of the destroyer , which served in the flotilla from May 1902. Another change of ship came in early January 1903, when he transferred to , then a brief month with in April 1903, until he was posted to for Naval manoeuvres during summer 1903. Keyes was posted to the intelligence section at the Admiralty in 1904 and then became naval attaché at the British Embassy in Rome in January 1905. he was appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order on 24 April 1906. He took up command of the cruiser in the Atlantic Fleet in 1908 before going on to be Inspecting Captain of Submarines in 1910 and, having been appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath on 19 June 1911, he became commodore of the Submarine Service in 1912. ==First World War==

, 1918; Imperial War Museum When the First World War broke out, Keyes took command of the Eighth Submarine Flotilla at Harwich. Keyes took charge in an operation in March 1915 when six trawlers and the cruiser attempted to clear the Kephez minefield. The operation was a failure, as the Turkish mobile artillery pieces bombarded Keyes's minesweeping squadron. Heavy damage was inflicted on four of the six trawlers, while HMS Amethyst was badly hit and had her steering gear damaged. After another abortive attempt to clear the mines a few days later, the naval attempt to force the straits was abandoned and instead troops were landed to assault the guns. For his service during the Dardanelles Campaign, Keyes was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George on 1 January 1916 and awarded the Distinguished Service Order on 3 June 1916. Keyes took command of the battleship in the Grand Fleet in June 1916 and, having been promoted to rear-admiral on 10 April 1917, became second in command of the 4th Battle Squadron with his flag in the battleship in June 1917. He went on to be Director of Plans at the Admiralty in October 1917 and then became Commander-in-Chief, Dover and commander of the Dover Patrol in January 1918. After Keyes took control, he altered tactics, and the Dover Patrol sank five U-boats in the first month after implementation of Keyes's plan. In April 1918 Keyes planned and led the famous raids on the German submarine pens in the Belgian ports of Zeebrugge and Ostend. and promoted Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 24 April 1918. In May 1918 he was involved in remote control trials of unmanned aerial vehicles by the Royal Navy's D.C.B. Section. He was then advanced to Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order on 10 December 1918 and made a baronet on 29 December 1919. In March 1919 he was appointed (Acting) Vice-Admiral in command of the Battle Cruiser Force until it was disbanded in April 1919. ==Interwar period==

Keyes was given command of the new Battlecruiser Squadron hoisting his flag at Scapa Flow in the battlecruiser in March 1919. Promoted to vice-admiral on 16 May 1921, he became Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff in November 1921 and then Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet in June 1925 with promotion to full admiral on 1 March 1926. In January 1928 at a dance on the quarterdeck of the battleship , Rear Admiral Bernard Collard, Second-in-command of the 1st Battle Squadron, openly lambasted Royal Marine Bandmaster, Percy Barnacle, and allegedly said "I won't have a bugger like that in my ship" in the presence of ship's officers and guests. Captain Kenneth Dewar and Commander Henry Daniel accused Collard of "vindictive fault-finding" and openly humiliating and insulting them before their crew, referring to an incident involving Collard's disembarkation from the ship in March 1928 where the admiral had openly said that he was "fed up with the ship"; Collard countercharged the two with failing to follow orders and treating him "worse than a midshipman". Letters of complaint from Dewar and Daniel were passed on to Keyes. The press picked up on the story worldwide, describing the affair—with some hyperbole—as a "mutiny". Keyes was thought by the Admiralty to have handled the matter badly and this may have adversely affected his chances of becoming First Sea Lord. He became Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, in May 1929, was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet on 8 May 1930 and was advanced Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on 3 June 1930. He then bought a house at Tingewick in Buckinghamshire and retired in May 1935. Keyes was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Portsmouth North in January 1934. In Parliament,he fought disarmament and sought to have the Fleet Air Arm put back under the control of the navy. He was opposed to the Munich Agreement, which Neville Chamberlain had reached with Adolf Hitler in 1938 and, along with Winston Churchill, was one of the few who withheld support from the Government on that issue. ==Second World War==

to whom Keyes was liaison officer When the Second World War broke out, Keyes was very anxious to obtain active service, but at the same time criticised the Chiefs of Staff. In his closing remarks Keyes invoked Horatio Nelson. Chamberlain's government fell two days later, and Churchill became prime minister. Keyes suffered a detached retina in early 1944. He then undertook a goodwill tour of Canada, Australia and New Zealand at the request of the British government in July 1944. During his visit to the amphibious warfare ship he suffered smoke inhalation following an attack by Japanese aircraft and never fully recovered. He died at his home in Tingewick on 26 December 1945 and was buried at the Zeebrugge corner of St James's Cemetery in Dover. ==Family==

In 1906 Keyes married Eva Mary Bowlby: they had three daughters and two sons including Geoffrey Keyes, who was killed in action in 1941 and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. ==Honours and awards==

• Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath – 3 June 1930 • Commandeur of the Legion of Honour (France) – 5 April 1916 • Navy Distinguished Service Medal (United States) – 16 September 1919 • Grand Cross, Order of Leopold (Belgium) – 2 August 1921 (Grand Officer – 23 July 1918) • Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 (France) – 23 July 1918 • Order of the Iron Crown, Second Class (Austria-Hungary) – 24 February 1908 • Order of the Medjidieh, Second Class (Turkey) – 4 June 1908 • Commander of the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus (Italy) – 22 June 1908 • Order of the Redeemer, Third Class (Greece) – 24 June 1909 {{Infobox COA wide ==References==