Lieutenant Commander L.E. Blackmore was First Lieutenant of HMS Vanguard during 1953. His career started at the age of 12 in the Merchant Navy and he spent his early years on the T.S Mercury. He then transferred to the Royal Navy in 1938 as a sub-lieutenant and was on HMS Grafton when it was sunk at Dunkirk in 1940. Fortunately for him, he apparently bent over just as a shell passed over which killed a number of his fellow officers. He later had six commands including HMS Ulster, HMS Vivien and HMS Mendip.
HMS VANGUARD, flying the Royal Standard, from the painting by Mr Norman Wilkinson, C.B.E., P.R.I., in possession of Her Majesty the Queen - presented to her by the Officers and Ship's Company of the 1st and 2nd Commissions on the occasion of her Marriage.
