Gordon Tait (Royal Navy officer)

Admiral Sir (Allen) Gordon Tait, KCB, DSC (30 October 1921 – 29 May 2005) was a senior Royal Navy officer who went on to be Second Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel.

Naval career
Tait joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1939.

He served in World War II with the Arctic convoys from 1939. In 1941 while serving as a junior officer on HMS Nigeria he seized the Enigma cipher settings from the German weather ship Lauenburg. He served in submarines in the Mediterranean and Far East from 1942 to the end of the War earning the Distinguished Service Cross for his skill and courage as a gunnery officer.

He was made Commanding Officer of the submarine HMS Teredo in 1947 and the submarine HMS Solent in 1948 before becoming Aide-de-camp to Lieutenant General Bernard Freyberg, Governor General of New Zealand in 1949. He then commanded successively the submarines HMS Ambush, HMS Aurochs, HMS Tally-Ho and HMS Sanguine. He went on to be Assistant Naval Adviser at the UK High Commission in Canada in 1957 and commanded the destroyer HMS Caprice from 1960.

In 1965, he was given command of the frigate HMS Ajax and the Second Destroyer Squadron in the Far East and in 1967 he took over the submarine depot ship HMS Maidstone and the Third Submarine Squadron. He was appointed Chief of Staff at Submarine Command in 1969 and made Commander of the Royal Naval College Dartmouth in 1970. In 1972 he became Naval Secretary at the Ministry of Defence and in 1975 he was made Flag Officer, Plymouth and Admiral Superintendent at Devonport. He last appointment was as Second Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel in 1977. He retired in 1979.

Family
In 1952, he married Philippa Todd; they went on to have two sons and two daughters.