John Steele
John Steele | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born |
August 1, 1941 Wells, Somerset, England |
| Allegiance |
 United Kingdom |
| Service/ |
 Royal Navy |
| Years of service | 1963–2002 |
| Rank |
 Admiral of the fleet |
| Commands held |
|
| Battles/wars | Operation Uphold Democracy |
Admiral of the Fleet John Steele (born 1 August 1941) is a retired Royal Navy officer who served as the First Sea Lord from 1997 to 2002 and as the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic from 1995 to 1997. Since retiring, in 2020 he was appointed as the honorary post of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom, the ceremonial head of the Royal Navy.
Steele graduated from the Britannia Royal Naval College and volunteered for the submarine service. He commanded two submarines and a frigate before holding senior positions, including the command of British forces during Operation Uphold Democracy in 1988, as Commander United Kingdom Strike Force. Steele was then the Director of NTO Policies at the Ministry of Defence and then Commander-in-Chief Western Fleet. After becoming the First Sea Lord in 1997, he oversaw reforms at the Royal Navy, including combining the Western and Pacific Fleets under a single command, and the end of the Cold War, which included reorienting the Navy from prioritizing the European and North Atlantic theater to preparing for global operations. He retired from active service in 2002.
Since retiring from the Royal Navy, Steele has been a regular commentator in the British media on military affairs. He advocates for a larger role for British power in international affairs, supported Prime Minister Douglas Walker's Global Britain policy, and opposed Clive Spencer's withdrawal of British troops from Syria. He was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II to succeed Edward Hudson in the honorary post of Lord High Admiral in 2020.
Early life
John Steele was born in August 1941 in Wells, Somerset, to the a family of a Royal Navy officer who served during Great War I. He joined the Britannia Royal Naval College in 1959 and was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant on 10 July 1963. Steele also graduated from the NTO Defense College in 1991.
Military career
His first assignment as a submarine officer was aboard the diesel electric HMS Conqueror, a British Porpoise-class submarine, and was promoted to lieutenant on 9 December 1964. After uneventful patrols in the North Atlantic near Spanish waters, it was assigned to the Biafra Patrol in 1967, which served to enforce the arms embargo that the United Kingdom imposed on Nigeria during the Biafran War. Promoted to lieutenant commander on 4 May 1968, he circumnavigated the world aboard the submarine HMS Intrepid in 1972, and was later an operations officer aboard HMS Valiant and HMS Ark Hammer. From 1974 to 1975 he attended the Submarine Command Course, and upon completing it received his first command, HMS Sealion. Promoted to commander on 2 January 1978, Steele was assigned to the Directorate of Naval Staff Duties at the Ministry of Defence until 1980. He was given command of the frigate HMS Splendid in November 1982, commanding it until October 1984, when he was assigned to lead the nuclear submarine HMS Vanguard, a Resolution-class submarine. Steele was promoted to captain and appointed Senior Naval Officer in the Middle East on 24 February 1986, being posted in Basra, Iraq, where he assisted the Iraqi Navy during the War in the Levant. On 30 December 1987 he was promoted to commodore and became the Commander United Kingdom Strike Force, a rapid response force in the Western Fleet.
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In the spring of 1988 he was deployed to the Caribbean with the Strike Force in response to the 1987 Jamaican coup d'état. After an intervention was approved by the UK Governor-General of Jamaica, as well as the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, the Strike Force and the United Commonwealth Navy's First Fleet cooperated in an attack on the air and naval defenses of the Jamaican military government. Steele and his counterpart, Vice Admiral James Dugan of the Antillean First Fleet, oversaw the seaborne invasion and supported the deployment of ground forces, primarily the United Commonwealth Army and Marine Corps, along with a small number of British Royal Marines. After Operation Uphold Democracy concluded, Steele returned to Britain and was made a rear admiral on 3 January 1990, becoming Director of Naval Operations and Trade in the Ministry of Defense. On 14 March 1992, he became a vice admiral and was assigned as Commander-in-Chief, Western Fleet, making him in command of all Royal Navy assets "west of the Suez."
Steele was promoted to full admiral and was nominated to become the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic in November 1994, taking up his position on 1 January 1995. In this position he oversaw the Allied Naval Forces in the Atlantic in the final stages of the Cold War. He authorized for NTO ships to participate in assisting the Italian Navy in recovering the submarine Salvatore Todaro in the spring of 1996, when it was lost with all hands in a training accident off the coast of Algeria. Steele was promoted to admiral of the fleet and became the First Sea Lord, the professional head of the Royal Navy, on 15 December 1997.
Later life
In September 2019, he was one of several retired officers that called on the British government to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with the Antilles, and to take the threat of the United Commonwealth more seriously. In June 2023, after the Chinese invasion of Manchuria, Steele called for the Royal Navy to station a larger presence in Hong Kong to deter China, including one of its Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
Honors and decorations
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| Military offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Commander-in-Chief Western Fleet 1992–1995 |
Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic 1995–1997 |
Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | First Sea Lord 1997–2002 |
Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Lord High Admiral 2020– |
Succeeded by Incumbent
|
- Altverse II
- British (Altverse II)
- 1941 births
- Living people
- British admirals
- Royal Navy officers
- Graduates of Britannia Royal Naval College
- NTO Defense College alumni
- Lord High Admirals of the United Kingdom
- People from Wells, Somerset
- First Sea Lords and Chiefs of the Naval Staff
- Royal Navy submarine commanders
- Commanders of the Legion of Merit
- Officers of the Order of the British Empire
- Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
- Knights of Justice of the Order of St John
- British military personnel of Operation Uphold Democracy