James Alfred Davidson

James Alfred Davidson, OBE, (March 22, 1921 – May 2004), was a British naval commander and diplomat. During the Second World War James Davidson served in every theatre of the war at sea. When peace came, he joined the Commonwealth Relations Office, and after working in Cambodia as the Khmer Rouge took over, he held high posts in Brunei, Bangladesh and the British Virgin Islands. Turning to the law after his retirement from the Diplomatic Service, he had a third career with the Pensions appeal tribunal.

Davidson was born in 1921 and educated at Portsmouth Grammar School and Christ's Hospital, then at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.

His first posting, as a midshipman, was to the old cruiser HMS Hawkins, but in 1942 he was transferred to the destroyer HMS Inconstant, with which he took part in the first successful British landing of the war, at Diego Suarez in Madagascar.

In 1943 he was appointed first lieutenant of the frigate HMS Calder. On escort and anti-submarine duties in the Western Approaches and the Mediterranean, the Calder was credited with sinking three U-boats, and never lost a ship on the fast troop convoys to Malta. In February 1944 Davidson took temporary command of the ship aged just 21.

Shortly after D-Day, Davidson joined HMS Rocket, an Eastern Fleet destroyer which took part in the Battle of Penang. After postwar pilot training, he served as executive officer and first lieutenant on HMS Childers, which took part in the painful and sensitive operation of policing illegal Jewish immigration into Palestine.

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