Ships
- HMAS Quiberon (G81) Captain from 16 February 1945 · Relieved on 2 September 1946
George Frederick Edmund Knox was born in Sydney, New South Wales, on 20 August 1913. He entered the Royal Australian Navy as a cadet on 1 January 1927, was rated midshipman on 1 May 1931, and passed through the junior ranks in the usual way: acting sub-lieutenant on 1 September 1933 and sub-lieutenant on 1 March 1934. Promotion to lieutenant came on 1 August 1935. He was made lieutenant commander on 1 August 1943, the rank he held when he was given a destroyer of his own.
On 16 February 1945 Knox assumed command of the Q-class destroyer Quiberon, pennant G81, in succession to Commander Harrington. The ship had been in Australian hands since her commissioning in July 1942 and was by then a veteran of convoy work, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean, but Knox's opening days were spent putting her through her paces again from Sydney. On 20 February Quiberon left Sydney for Jervis Bay, exercising as she went, and anchored in the bay that afternoon. The next day she fired torpedoes off Jervis Bay, with the escort carrier Striker acting as the target.
On 28 February 1945 the British Pacific Fleet sailed from Sydney for the American base at Manus, in the Admiralty Islands, and Quiberon went with it. The force that put to sea included the battleships King George V, wearing the flag, and Howe, four fleet carriers, four cruisers, twelve destroyers, and a light cruiser carrying the Rear-Admiral (Destroyers). From Manus the fleet moved forward to take its place in the Okinawa campaign.
At dawn on 26 March 1945 Task Force 57 reached its flying-off position and launched strikes against the Sakishima Islands, the chain of airfields on the southern flank of the Okinawa landings. Knox afterwards reported that the fleet was brought to five minutes' notice for air attack on three occasions that morning. No hostile aircraft were sighted. Quiberon stayed in the screen while the carriers kept up those attacks.
In July the same ships turned against Japan itself. On 17 July Knox recorded that at 1500 Quiberon was detached, in company with Quality, to screen King George V for a night bombardment. At 1800 they met an American bombardment force of six battleships and their destroyers. That night British and American heavy ships fired on the Japanese mainland together for the first time, and Quiberon was in the screen for King George V.
Knox kept Quiberon through the end of the Pacific fighting and the year that followed. He was relieved on 2 September 1946. For his wartime service in the ship he was mentioned in despatches. He was promoted commander on 30 June 1951 and retired from the Royal Australian Navy on 6 April 1958.