Ships
- HMNZS Achilles (70) Captain from 16 April 1942 · Relieved on 4 February 1943
Cecil Aubrey Lawson Mansergh had HMNZS Achilles from 16 April 1942 until 4 February 1943. The bomb that wrecked X turret off Guadalcanal on 5 January 1943 fell while he was in command. The next day, on uboat.net's list, he was appointed to Leander.
Uboat.net gives his birth as 7 October 1898 and does not give a place or a death. Nothing further on his family was on the page fetched for him.
The same page gives the rank line: acting sub-lieutenant on 15 March 1917, sub-lieutenant on 15 November 1917, lieutenant on 17 December 1918, lieutenant-commander on 17 December 1926, commander on 30 June 1932, and captain on 31 December 1938. It then carries him to rear-admiral on 8 January 1948 and vice-admiral on 15 January 1951, with retirement on 16 December 1954. No decoration is printed. The page says it has no career narrative.
He relieved Hugh Merriman Barnes in Achilles on 16 April 1942. On 11 December 1942 the ship, under his command, sailed from Wellington escorting the troopship Aquitania in convoy US 18, and was relieved by HMAS Adelaide on 16 December. He left Achilles on 4 February 1943, after the January damage and before she sailed for Portsmouth. Uboat.net lists him in command of HMNZS Leander from 5 February 1943 to 30 September 1943, and its event line says that on 13 July 1943, during the Battle of Kula Gulf, Leander was torpedoed while he was in command, with an engine room, a boiler room and a 4-inch gun destroyed, and that she then went to Boston. That is the page's statement. No other account of that action was fetched for this essay.
The fetched page ends with the vice-admiral's rank and the retirement on 16 December 1954. It does not say where he went or when he died.