Admiral Sir Jeremy Black: Charismatic commander of HMS 'Invincible' who played a vital role in securing victory in the Falklands

After the Falklands War, which won him a DSO, he was promoted to Rear Admiral

Black: hugely popular, he liked to give out Crunchie bars to reward good service (CAMERA PRESS)

To Sandy Woodward’s Nelson, Jeremy Black was Collingwood – commander of the British force’s other half in a great battle, whose lot was to stay on at sea for his country long after it was over. That other half, complementing Woodward’s flagship HMS Hermes, was HMS Invincible, Black’s command. The two aircraft carriers were at the heart of the British Task Force steaming to the South Atlantic to take back the Falkland Islands after Argentina’s invasion in 1982.

Under Woodward, Black was Anti-Air-Warfare Commander for the carriers and their escorts, and after the Argentine surrender on 14 June, Black captained Invincible on to achieve 166 days continuously at sea, thought to be the longest recorded for a carrier. Invincible stayed until HMS Illustrious replaced her at the end of August, and arrived in Portsmouth on 17 September.

Since setting sail on 5 April, the genial, charismatic Black, known to his men as “JJ” – his initials, John Jeremy – had focused his long experience as a gunnery officer and ship’s captain on the task in hand. The enemy had five aces: the five French-designed Exocet guided missiles known to be in Argentina’s possession, and to which the British had as yet no adequate defence. Were any to sink the carriers, with their Sea Harrier aircraft, air superiority would have gone to Argentina.

The enemy took a pop on 30 May, Invincible the target. The warning – codeword “Handbrake!” – came from the escorting destroyer HMS Exeter. But a ruse as simple and singular as Nelson’s saved the day. The British had made sure their aircraft eluded Argentinian radar by returning to the flight decks at a low trajectory for the last 50 miles in.

But it was Black, not Woodward, who had sailed in mightier ships, and been blooded in war. The son of a former merchant seaman who had set up in business in Plymouth, Black was educated from the age of 13 at Britannia Royal Naval College, and had been a midshipman in the cruiser HMS Belfast.

His training had included a jungle expedition in Malaya and action on offshore patrol during the 1950-53 Korean War. He had served in the last battleship to be built by the Navy, Vanguard, as a sub-lieutenant in 1954, and in 1962 had won a military MBE and been decorated by the Sultan of Brunei for his resourcefulness during the Indonesian Confrontation in Borneo. As a lieutenant, the senior Royal Navy officer in the area, Black had turned two Z-lighter cargo vessels into landing craft to deliver Royal Marine commandos upriver to rescue hostages, in the action known as the Limbang Raid.

Black had the knack of enthusing his crews. On Invincible, the men ran up T-shirts bearing choice sayings of his, such as his words, about some matter of difficulty: “We’ll piss it!”, and, on return from the Falklands, “There and back with JJ Black”. When, after the Falklands War, he invited on board skimpily clad female entertainers, he was cheered: “JJ! JJ!” For many years it had been his habit to give out Crunchie bars for good service.

He also enjoyed the faith of fellow officers in his talents. Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Leach was First Sea Lord from 1979-82, but in 1963, when he was a captain and fellow gunnery officer, he had, at Black’s request, defended Black through a court martial in Singapore. It concerned the sale and supply of goods by a crewman and an officer during Black’s command of the minesweeper HMS Fiskerton between 1961 and 1963. Black was let off with a reprimand; the officer and the crewman were dismissed. “Henry virtually disregarded his normal work and worked all hours of the day and night on my case,” Black recalled.

The court martial was, Black said, “an event I had never considered I would have to face, not even in my worst nightmares.” After it, he almost left the service to take up his father’s business, but refrained, thanks to “many of my senior officers [who] gently persuaded me that Armageddon had not in fact occurred.”

Black recovered his confidence with his next posting, as Assistant Long-Course Officer at the Royal Navy’s gunnery school, HMS Excellent, on Whale Island, Portsmouth. By way of another tough command, HMS Decoy, that included a stint on the 1965-75 Beira Patrol blockading oil shipments to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Black found himself updating the Royal Navy’s Rules of Engagement at a Whitehall posting at the Ministry of Defence. He was promoted commander in 1969, and would be raised to captain in 1974.

He became executive officer on the destroyer HMS Kent, then commanded the destroyer HMS Fife, where his Crunchie-distributing tradition originated with praise for a rating who had put out a fire. Black attended the Royal College of Defence Studies in 1979, and, lastly before Invincible, was at the MoD as Director of Naval Operational Requirements, Naval Staff.

After the Falklands War, which won him a DSO, he was promoted to Rear Admiral and succeeded Woodward as Flag Officer, First Flotilla. With his elevation to Assistant Chief of Naval Staff he had, he noted, “a job totally removed from sailors and ships.” As Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (Systems) Black proposed Tomahawk missiles for the Royal Navy 10 years before this became a reality; and his advice that tanks, like ships, should have satellite navigation systems, though rejected on cost, was taken up by commanders who bought their own for the First Gulf War of 1990-91.

In 1989 Black succeeded Woodward as Commander in Chief, Naval Home Command, and Flag Aide-de-Camp to the Queen, having, by tradition, as his flagship, Nelson’s HMS Victory. He retired in 1991 and was chairman of the Whitbread Round the World Race Committee from 1990-94. He published a memoir, There and Back, in 2005.

ANNE KELENY

John Jeremy Black, naval officer: born Horrabridge, Devon 17 November 1932; MBE 1963, DSO 1982, KCB 1987, GBE 1991; married 1958 Alison Barber (one daughter, two sons); died Durley, Hampshire 25 November 2015.