Ships
- HMNZS Gambia (48) Captain from 28 April 1945
Ralph Alan Bevan Edwards assumed command of HMNZS Gambia on 28 April 1945 and had her through the last Sakishima strikes, the bombardment of Kamaishi, the cease-fire off Japan, the Tokyo Bay surrender, and the passage home in February 1946. Uboat.net closes his command at about October 1945. No fetched page gives the day he actually left her.
Uboat.net gives his birth as 31 March 1901 at Kensington and his death as 4 February 1963 at Liss. Unithistories has the same dates and places the death at Liss, Hampshire, with a question mark on the place. He was the son of Arthur Corbett Edwards. In 1932 he married Joan le Fowne Hurt, daughter of Commander Henry Albert le Fowne Hurt, CMG. They had one son and one daughter. In 1947 his residence was Soberton, Hampshire.
Uboat.net's rank line is cadet on 15 September 1914, acting sub-lieutenant on 15 May 1920, sub-lieutenant on 15 January 1921, lieutenant on 15 December 1922, lieutenant-commander on 15 December 1930, commander on 30 June 1934, and captain on 30 June 1939. Unithistories has him entered in 1914, a midshipman in 1917 and 1918, and the same lieutenant-to-captain dates. Waters's footnote adds that he was a midshipman in the battlecruiser Tiger from 1917 to 1919. Unithistories then has him in Hood from December 1922, qualifying in signals, flag lieutenant to the Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean, in Warspite, flag lieutenant-commander on the America and West Indies Station in Delhi, first lieutenant of Guardian, and in command of the minesweeper Bagshot from December 1936 and of Sandwich on the China Station from March 1937. He was at the staff college at Greenwich in 1936. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire on 2 June 1943.
From 18 October 1939 he was Deputy Director of the Operations Division at the Admiralty, and from 8 February 1941 Director of Operations Division (Home). Unithistories makes him Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief, Eastern Fleet, from 26 March 1942, borne first in Warspite and then at Kilindini and Ceylon, and still shows that appointment in the June 1944 list. Uboat.net gives him three mentions in despatches, on 15 August 1944, 30 October 1944, and 11 June 1946. Unithistories dates the second to 31 October 1944 and ties the first two to the Eastern Fleet strikes: Sabang and Surabaya on 15 August 1944, and Operation CRIMSON on 31 October 1944. Those were staff decorations. William-Powlett, not Edwards, was captain of Gambia for Sabang and Sourabaya. The June 1946 mention is indexed as the wind-up of the Far East.
Unithistories lists him as commanding officer of HMNZS Gambia from 15 March 1945, and the July 1945 list still has him there. Waters is more precise about the ship. Edwards arrived on 27 April 1945 and assumed command the next day, relieving William-Powlett, who had commissioned her for New Zealand in September 1943. The 15 March date is kept as the appointment listed in the Navy List style entry, not as the day he took the bridge. From 28 April he had her for the 4 May bombardment of Nobara, in which she fired 230 rounds of 6-inch, for the rest of the Sakishima strikes, and for the passage to Sydney on 5 June. He sailed her from Sydney on 28 June with Rear-Admiral Brind's flag, joined Task Force 37 off Japan on 16 July, and on 9 August took her to the Kamaishi bombardment. He was still in command on 15 August, when a Japanese bomber was shot down over the force and part of it fell on her after superstructure. On 2 September he went to the musical sunset on Duke of York after the surrender on Missouri. On 17 September he steamed her through the typhoon at Wakayama. Waters's footnote dates the command 1945–46. On 7 February 1946 she paid off and re-commissioned, and on 12 February she sailed from Auckland. Edwards sent the Naval Board the farewell. Uboat.net's "about October 1945" does not survive that account, and unithistories shows no appointment by April 1946. The day between the February sailing and that April blank is not in any page fetched here, so the catalog gives him one line, from 28 April 1945.
Uboat.net promotes him rear-admiral on 10 July 1948, vice-admiral on 26 January 1952, and admiral on 22 April 1955, and dates his retirement to 15 May 1958. Unithistories has the same flag dates. He was a Companion of the Bath on 8 June 1950 and a Knight Commander of the Bath on 1 January 1954. From 1948 to 1950 he was a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty and Assistant Chief of Naval Staff, which matches Waters's footnote. He was Flag Officer Second-in-Command, Mediterranean, and Flag Officer (Air) Mediterranean in 1951–52, then Third Sea Lord and Controller from 1953 to 1956, and Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean, and Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces Mediterranean, from 11 January 1957 to 11 November 1958. He died on 4 February 1963.