On this day 1940 Adm/Flt Sir Charles Forbes, CinC @RoyalNavy Home Fleet set sail from Scapa Flow aboard his newly returned flagship, the battleship HMS Nelson, with V/Adm Sir Jock Whitworth's flagship, the battlecruiser HMS Hood, recently returned from Gibraltar #BattleOfBritain

Accompanied by the new anti-aircraft cruisers HMS Bonaventure & HMS Naiad & the K & Tribal Class destroyers of the 6th Destroyer Flotilla, they sailed south. Their destination was Rosyth in order to be closer to the beaches of southern England in the event of a German invasion.

Additionally, the battleship HMS Revenge, which had just arrived on the Clyde after transporting £14½M of Britain's gold reserves to Halifax, Nova Scotia, sailed the following day with the cruiser HMS Emerald for @HMNBDevonport ensuring a battleship presence in the Channel itself

Left behind at Scapa Flow were the battlecruiser HMS Repulse & aircraft carrier HMS Furious to guard against threats to Iceland or any German heavy ships trying to break out through any of the northern passages into the Atlantic

Adm/Flt Forbes' numbers would be further boosted upon arrival at Rosyth by HMS Nelson's sister ship, HMS Rodney, which had just completed a brief refit at the dockyard there.

Alongside Adm/Flt Forbes' Home Fleet were another 6 cruisers & 70 destroyers stationed from the Humber to @HMNBPortsmouth, ensuring the @RoyalNavy had very powerful forces available to counter any prospective German invasion #BattleOfBritain

To Adm/Flt Sir Charles Forbes, this was overkill. Even a fraction of the force of cruisers & destroyers could deal with any invasion force the Germans could put into the Channel (which he believed they would not attempt, in any case), while U-boats ran riot in the Atlantic.

Meanwhile the Home Fleet could be in the Channel in less the 24 hours from Scapa Flow if needed. Tied to Rosyth for an invasion he felt was not going to happen, however, Adm/Flt Forbes was also unable to use his fleet offensively, as he had been trying to do before the move.

Adm/Flt Forbes had planned to use his fleet in surface & aircraft carrier strikes against German shipping & targets around Norway & on 7th September he had taken HMS Nelson & HMS Furious to to do just that, launching air strikes from the Skuas of 801, & Swordfish of 816 & @825NAS

Requests to both 1st Sea Lord, Adm Flt Sir Dudley Pound, & Prime Minister Winston Churchill, to be able to repeat this, however, were to no avail. The Home Fleet & other forces were to remain in place until November. Offensive moves by the @RoyalNavy would mainly be in the Med.

Meanwhile, Adm/Flt Sir Charles Forbes' protests contributed to the souring of his relationship with both PM & 1st Sea Lord. Combined with his great seniority (his promotion in April had made him the 1st Adm/Flt to command a seagoing fleet at war since Lord St Vincent in 1814)...

this ensured that he was relieved as CinC Home Fleet on 2nd December 1940, by Adm Sir John Tovey, around five months sooner than had originally been planned upon his promotion.
"How right he was" wrote Adm/Flt Lord Cunningham, Forbes' opposite number as CinC Med, after the war...

"He was in my opinion quite one of the soundest and best of our war admirals, and was never given any credit for his doings. Winston and Brendan Bracken disliked him"
Offered the choice of becoming CinC @HMNBPortsmouth or CinC @HMNBDevonport when they next became vacant...

Adm/Flt Sir Charles Forbes opted to become CinC Plymouth, feeling that @HMNBDevonport's proximity to the new, French U-boat bases would offer better opportunites to exercise command from ashore (though some of the duties would move to @WestApproaches before he took command).

Duly assuming command at @HMNBDevonport from legendary submariner, Adm Sir Martin Dunbar-Nasmith, on 1st May 1941, Adm/Flt Sir Charles Forbes served as CinC Plymouth until retirement on 24th August 1943, aged 62.
One of Britain's most critical figures during the #BattleOfBritain