Francis Cromie

Who was Francis Cromie?

Captain Francis Newton Allen Cromie, CB, DSO, was the commander of the British submarine flotilla in the Baltic during World War I. He took part in suppressing the Boxer Uprising in Peking. He joined the Royal Navy Submarine Service in 1903. In 1915 he navigated the submarine HMS E19 through Oresund into the Baltic Sea, to prey on iron ore transports from Sweden to Imperial Germany. In May 1917 he was appointed the naval attaché in Petrograd. On 31 August 1918 he was shot in front of the British Embassy in Petrograd when he tried to prevent a detachment of Cheka from entering and searching the embassy in an attempt to break the British intelligence network there. He is buried at the Archangel Memorial in Arkhangelsk.