Ships
- HMS Illustrious (87) Captain from 9 July 1944 · Relieved on 31 July 1945
Charles Edward Lambe was born on 20 December 1900 and was trained for the Royal Navy at Osborne and Dartmouth, going to sea before the end of the First World War. He qualified as a torpedo specialist and later added flying to his experience. He was promoted lieutenant in February 1922, commander on 30 June 1933, and captain on 31 December 1937. Officers who served with him remembered a versatile man: a capable aviator, a fine pianist, a serious student of painting, and a strong polo player.
In the later 1930s he was attached to the royal household, first with Edward VIII and then with George VI, and in September 1938 he was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. He remained an extra equerry to George VI and, from 1952, to the Queen. In January 1939 he took command of the light cruiser Dunedin. Through the first year of the Second World War the ship worked on the Northern Patrol, and in July 1940 he was mentioned in despatches. That autumn he joined the Admiralty. He moved up through the Plans Division and, from March 1942, served as Director of Plans, a post that placed him in the middle of wartime naval strategy and at Allied conferences. He was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the New Year honours of 1944.
He left Plans in the spring of 1944. On 9 July 1944 he became captain of the fleet carrier Illustrious, then serving with the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean. Late that month the ship took part in the attack on Sabang. Through the following months her aircraft struck oil targets in Sumatra, and late in 1944 she passed into the new British Pacific Fleet.
In January 1945 aircraft from Illustrious attacked the refineries at Palembang, part of the effort to cut Japanese fuel supplies as Allied forces closed on the western Pacific. In the spring the carrier joined the force covering the landings on Okinawa, sending strikes against airfields in the Sakishima Islands. In April a Japanese aircraft crashed into the sea close alongside and its bomb exploded, damaging the hull. Illustrious was withdrawn for repair. Lambe was mentioned in despatches for the carrier operations, one of three such mentions in his wartime record, and he received the American Legion of Merit. He remained captain until he was relieved on 31 July 1945.
Soon after leaving Illustrious he was given acting rank as rear-admiral and appointed Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff for air matters, the post he held into 1947. His substantive promotion to rear-admiral was dated 8 July 1947. He then served as Flag Officer, Flying Training, and from 1949 he commanded the 3rd Aircraft Carrier Squadron. Promoted vice-admiral on 1 December 1950, he became Flag Officer, Air (Home) the following year.
In March 1953 he was appointed Commander-in-Chief in the Far East, and in the New Year honours of that year he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. Promotion to admiral followed on 30 March 1954. In October 1955 he became Second Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel. He was advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1957, and that November he took command of the Mediterranean Fleet while also serving as NATO Commander, Allied Forces Mediterranean.
In May 1959 he succeeded Earl Mountbatten as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff. A serious heart attack cut the appointment short. He retired on 10 May 1960 and was promoted Admiral of the Fleet the same day. He died at his home in Newport-on-Tay, Fife, on 29 August 1960, at the age of fifty-nine.