Adrian C. C. Seligman

Adrian Charles Cuthbert Seligman (1909-2003) was a British sailor, author, and soldier in the Second World War. Seligman would create the Levant Schooner Flotilla naval commando unit in the Aegian Sea.

Seligman was born in Leatherhead, Surrey to metallurgist Richard Seligman and author and sculptor Hilda Seligman (née McDowell). As a child Seligman attended Rokeby Preparatory School in Kingston upon Thames, London, but learned to sail while his family vacationed in Saint-Jacut-de-la-Mer, Brittany. After failing natural science examinations at the University of Cambridge Seligman took work as a mess boy on a shipping freighter and began a career at sea. While working as a sailor Seligman circumnavigated the globe three times aboard the ships Killoran and Olivebank.

Seligman purchased a 250-ton French fishing Barquentine named Cap Pilar on the advice of Joseph Stenhouse, a commander in the Royal Navy and former participant in Ernest Shackleton's Discovery Expedition. In 1936 Seligman, his wife Jane Batterbury, and a crew of six set out on a voyage to circumnavigate the globe. The project was funded in part by the London daily News Chronicle. The couple had a daughter born in New Zealand during the voyage. In 1939 Seligman published a popular book about the experience, The Voyage of the Cap Pilar.

At the onset of WWII Seligman was a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve. Initially Seligman worked in minesweeping operations and commanded a destroyer. In 1941 Seligman and other reserve officers conducted a special operations mission to bring five ships from Russia to Syria through the German blockade at the Dardanelles. In this mission, Seligman commanded a camouflaged oiltanker called Olinda.

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