Eric Gascoigne Robinson

Rear Admiral Eric Gascoigne Robinson VC, OBE was a Royal Navy officer and an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He earned his award by going ashore and singlehandedly destroying a Turkish naval gun battery while a lieutenant commander with the fleet stationed off the Dardanelles during the Gallipoli campaign in the First World War.

Eric Gascoigne Robinson was born in 1882 at Greenwich in SouthEast London to John Lovell Robinson and Louisa Aveline Gascoigne. John was the chaplain of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich and Erics youth was spent in preparation for a life at sea. Robinson joined HMS Britannia aged just fifteen in 1897 and rapidly progressed to the battleship HMS160Majestic and then the first class protected cruiser HMS160Endymion, in which he took part in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion in China. It was here, aged 18, that he saw his first action with the relief force, being wounded in action, mentioned in despatches and gaining a reputation as a daring and resourceful officer. He remained in China serving on a Yangtze gunboat for several years before returning to England and becoming a torpedo specialist at HMS160Vernon, Portsmouth, in 1907.

Source: Wikipedia