Guy D’Oyly Hughes was born on 1 August 1891, the son of Samuel and Keziah D’Oyly Hughes. He joined the Royal Navy as a Cadet at Osborne on 15 May 1904. Promotion to Midshipman followed on 15 January 1909 and he was appointed to the battleship HMS AGAMEMNON. He was promoted to Sub Lieutenant on 30 April 1912 and he was appointed to the cruiser HMS MINERVA II ‘for Torpedo Boat Destroyers’ on 1 August 1912.

He volunteered for service in submarines in 1913 and was appointed to HMS DOLPHIN ‘for Training in Submarines’ on 16 June 1913. He came top of his Training Class and, on 20 October 1913, Sub Lieutenant D’Oyly Hughes was appointed to the submarine depot ship HMS ARROGANT ‘for Submarine C31 as First Lieutenant’. He was promoted Lieutenant on 30 September 1913 and appointed to HMS E11 as First Lieutenant. After carrying out patrols in the North Sea and making an unsuccessful attempted entry to the Baltic in late 1914 E11 was sent to the Mediterranean in early 1915 with the submarine depot ship HMS ADAMANT to assist in the Dardanelles Campaign.

Following the award of the Victoria Cross to Martin Nasmith for his services in HMS E11 at the Dardanelles and in the Sea of Marmora Guy, D’Oyly-Hughes was awarded the DSC (London Gazette of 24th June 1915) and the DSO (London Gazette of 8th October 1915). This second award was for a successful attack on a railway line which he made single handed after being landed from E11 in the Sea of Marmora . He safely returned to the submarine. To accomplish this attack, he swam ashore with a makeshift raft carrying explosives.

After HMS E11 D’Oyly-Hughes next served, again with Martin Nasmith, in the new ‘J’ Class’ submarine HMS J4 as First Lieutenant, based on the submarine depot ship HMS TITANIA at Blyth. His first Command appointment was to HMS C3 to date 26 February 1917 and he was subsequently appointed in command of HMS E35 to date 9 July 1917. On 11 May 1918 E35 torpedoed and sank the ‘U’ Boat U-154 West of Gibraltar, for which attack Guy D’Oyly Hughes was awarded a Bar to his DSO (London Gazette of 14 September 1918). In the citation for this award, SNO Gibraltar wrote as follows: ‘Torpedoed an enemy submarine on the 11th May 1918. Their Lordships consider that the attack was a very skilful piece of work under difficult weather conditions, which reflects great credit on all concerned.”

Guy D’Oyly Hughes was next appointed to HMS DOLPHIN ‘for Submarine L54 in Command’ to date 9 November 1918 and this was followed, on 13 January 1919, by ‘for Submarine L71 in Command’. He returned to the surface fleet on 8 February 1919 as ‘Flag Lieutenant’ to Commodore J S Dumaresque in HMAS AUSTRALIA.

He returned to submarines on 1 May 1920 with an appointment in Command of the submarine depot ship ‘HMS ARROGANT and this lasted until 27 September 1920. He was promoted to Lieutenant Commander on 30 September 1921. After Staff Course he was appointed to the battleship HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH ‘on the Staff of Admiral Sir Charles Madden’ in 1921. His next move was to HMS DOLPHIN as ‘Staff Officer (War Staff Duties)’ on 30 August 1922 and, on 27 July 1924, he was appointed to HMS CONQUEST at Chatham ‘for Submarine K12 in Command’. Guy D’Oyly Hughes was next appointed to HMS DOLPHIN ‘for Submarine O1 in Command’ – later HMS OBERON – on 13 November 1925. Promotion to Commander followed on 31 December 1925.

In April 1928 he was listed without an appointment. In 1929 D’Oyly-Hughes applied for Half Pay and became a Land Agent before returning to the Navy in 1930 and being appointed for ‘Special Duties with the RAF’. He then learned to fly with the RAF and was later ‘Commander’ of the aircraft carrier HMS COURAGEOUS before moving on to the ‘Directorate of Air Training’ at the Air Ministry. He was further promoted to Captain on 31 December 1932 and was appointed to the Submarine Flotilla Leader HMS DOUGLAS ‘in Command’ and ‘in Command of the First Submarine Flotilla’ in the Mediterranean on 1 May 1934.

In November 1936 he was ‘Chief of Staff’ to Admiral Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax at Devonport and, after a year at the Imperial Defence College he was unemployed by the Navy until he was appointed to the aircraft carrier HMS GLORIOUS ’in Command’ on 19 May 1939.

Guy D’Oyly Hughes was lost with HMS GLORIOUS which was sunk by the SCHARNHORST and GNEISENHAU when returning from the Norwegian Campaign on 8 June 1940. He was the husband of Anne Margaret Gladys D’Oyly Hughes of New York City, New York, USA, and is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval War Memorial on Panel 36 Column No. 1.

See this extraordinary account of his attack on a railway line described in this story.