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Notes
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Michael Torrens-Spence won many decorations during wartime service in the Mediterranean as a pilot with the Fleet Air Arm, and in the course of his career he held commissions in the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. In November 1940, when in the aircraft carrier ‘Illustrious’ he played a daring part in the Swordfish raid on Taranto, and in the following spring he played an even more significant role before the naval action off Cape Matapan by torpedoing the Italian cruiser ‘Pola’. In his autobiography ‘War in a Stringbag’, Charles Lamb observed of Torrens-Spence that his ‘innate nervousness always forced him to press home his attacks to a suicidal degree…’. He wears commander’s undress uniform, 1921 onwards, with pilot wings. The portrait is signed and dated ‘Lamb44’.
Title
Captain Michael Torrens-Spence (1914–2001)
Date
1944
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 76.2 x W 63.5 cm
Accession number
BHC3056
Work type
Painting
National Maritime Museum
Romney Road, Greenwich, London, Greater London SE10 9NF England
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