Bernard Rawlings (Royal Navy officer)

Admiral Sir Henry Bernard Hughes Rawlings GBE KCB (21 May 1889 – 30 September 1962) was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Flag Officer, Eastern Mediterranean during World War II.

Rawlings was born in St Erth, Cornwall, England, on 21 May 1889. Following education at Stubbington House School Rawlings joined the Royal Navy in 1904 and served in World War I. After the War he worked for the Foreign Office and undertook Military Missions in Poland. He then commanded the destroyer HMS Active and then the cruisers HMS Curacoa and HMS Delhi before becoming Naval Attaché in Tokyo in 1936.

He served in World War II initially commanding the battleship HMS Valiant, then commanding the 1st Battle Squadron from 1940 before commanding the 7th Cruiser Squadron from 1941 and becoming Assistant Chief of Naval Staff in 1942. He became Flag Officer, West Africa in 1943 and Flag Officer, Eastern Mediterranean in 1943. He went on to be second-in-command of the British Pacific Fleet with his flag in HMS King George V. He commanded British Task Force 57 in the Pacific from 1944 through the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945 and retired in 1946.

Rawlings died in Bodmin, Cornwall, England, on 30 September 1962.