Ships
- HMS Ceres (D59) Commander from 4 December 1944 · Relieved in mid 1945
Charles Richard Garrett had Ceres from 4 December 1944, as a commander on the retired list. Uboat.net ends him in the middle of 1945. Unithistories.com carries the command through July 1945. By then she was an accommodation ship at Portsmouth. His start overlaps the "late 1944" still printed against Roland Charlton Allen. Both dates are kept as printed.
Unithistories says he was born on 13 March 1901 at Puri, in Orissa, India, and that he died on 16 February 1968 in Kenya. Uboat.net gives the same birth date and no death.
He was educated at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, and he entered the Navy on 15 September 1914. Unithistories dates lieutenant 15 December 1922 and lieutenant-commander 15 December 1930, and it says he had retired before July 1935. Uboat.net gives the same two promotion dates and a retirement of 31 January 1934. He was reactivated on 19 August 1939. The commander's rank on the retired list has seniority of 13 March 1941. Unithistories also prints an acting commander in June 1944. He was mentioned in despatches on 14 November 1944 for Operation Neptune.
The page says he played rugby for the Royal Navy against the All Blacks and commanded the Devonport gun crew at the Royal Tournament in 1929, and that he played first-class cricket for the Navy from 1926 to 1929. Dated appointments that the page prints cleanly include a temporary posting to Dauntless from 24 June 1923, Thunderer from 27 May 1924, Frobisher and physical-training duties with the First Cruiser Squadron on the China Station from 17 December 1926, and Despatch as fleet physical-training officer on the America and West Indies Station from 14 November 1929. Lines that the page itself marks with a question mark are not repeated here.
He was in Liverpool from 19 August 1939 into April 1940, executive officer of the monitor Erebus from 2 December 1940 into February 1941, and at the Portsmouth barracks from 10 November 1941 into August 1943. From October 1943 into June 1944 the page lists no appointment, and it remarks that this was common for officers intended for Operation Neptune. It then places him with Naval Party 1658, under the Eastern Task Force, allocated to Gooseberry 4, which was part of the Mulberry B harbour. The same paragraph also indicates service at Matador, the depot ship for ferry-service personnel in Red Ensign ships.
Uboat.net and unithistories both start him in Ceres on 4 December 1944. Mason has her paid off into reserve in October 1944 and, from December, an accommodation ship at Portsmouth in Fountain Lake, which continued through August 1945 and, after the war, until January 1946. The mention in despatches for Neptune is dated a fortnight before he took her. The pages do not say he was aboard her at Gooseberry 1. That summer command belongs to Roland Allen. Garrett's earlier party was at Gooseberry 4.
Unithistories says he reverted to the retired list before April 1946, and that after the war he was a stockbroker, a partner in Hichens, Harrison and Co. from 1947 to 1957. He died in Kenya on 16 February 1968.