ABSTRACT
Cunningham described the command of the Mediterranean Fleet as 'the finest appointment the Royal Navy has to offer', and he would have counted himself fortunate to achieve this goal. However, more ominous shadows overhung the C-in-C’s official residence. On Cunningham’s assumption of command, therefore, the British were in a ‘strategic mess’. Cunningham rarely held staff meetings, preferring to deal with each officer in turn. Moreover, Cunningham was far from easy to deal with Manley Power described him as 'a bully'. Cunningham continued the intensive program of his predecessors and 'in the spring and summer of 1939 the Mediterranean Fleet as a whole carried out more intensive gunnery training and practices than have ever been accomplished in peace'. Cunningham had developed a relationship of mutual respect, frankness and trust with Pound, though he continued to harbor reservations about Pound’s proclivity for undue interference.
