Second Officer Molly Rimington

Molly Rimington, who as Second Officer Molly Shakespear WRNS kept Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham’s war diary, has died aged 93.
When in September 1942, Shakespear was offered the job of writing the war diary for Cunningham, who was Naval Commander Expeditionary Force, North Africa, she was awed but undaunted. After some weeks at Norfolk House in St James’ Square, she flew by Sunderland flying boat from Plymouth to Gibraltar to join Cunningham’s staff at Gibraltar, reporting first to Captain Ritchie, who taught her her responsibilities for reading signals and reports of proceedings, preparing a daily précis, and submitting this to Cunningham who, usually, signed it without comment and sent it off monthly to the Admiralty.
As diarist she recorded Operation Torch, the Allied Landings in North Africa, and by Christmas she had joined Cunningham’s shore headquarters in Algiers. Initially she was very lonely and had to brace herself before entering a room of a hundred or so men. It was no compensation that, as she was the only Wren, they jokingly called her “Senior WRNS Officer North Africa.”
Some weeks later more Wrens arrived who were billeted in a house near dockyard, where Shakespear became queen bee. Of an evening there were curious callers, and when she complained to a French officer he roared with laughter, explaining that before the Allies came it had been a brothel. Thereafter she slept with a with a service revolver under her pillow to defend the honour of her Wrens. A wit in the Admiralty named this new establishment HMS Hannibal.
She continued to record events in the Mediterranean, writing up the landings in Sicily and Italy, and causing Cunningham to write “Second Officer Shakespear has performed her duties on my staff through planning stage at Norfolk House and the campaign in North Africa with a quite remarkable efficiency. Apart from her professional achievement, she has set a high example on and off duty and particularly during air raids. A most unusual young officer and a credit to the WRNS.”
Aged 26 she was awarded the MBE.
Born Joan Marion Shakespear on Boxing Day, 1916 at Camberley, the youngest of three sisters, her father, the future Brigadier Talbot Shakespear RE, won an MC at Mons. Interwar the family moved in army fashion from France to Gibraltar, back to England and to Egypt and the Far East. Young Molly, as she was always known, was educated at Conamur School, Sandgate and the Royal School, Bath
Shakespear left school in 1934 and joined her parents on their second tour in Singapore: where with her unmarried sister she enjoyed a busy social programme. They bought a car and travelled around Malaya often on roads barely more than a track, voyaged to Hong Kong, and taught part time at a Chinese girls’ school to supplement dress allowances, and a boyfriend taught her to fly a Tiger Moth.
In 1937 Shakespear took a 6 months secretarial course and found work at Church House, Westminster, but on the eve of war she wanted to volunteer for the WRNS, taking matters into her own hands when she was told there were no vacancies for her. Over Sunday lunch she confided in her uncle, the future Vice Admiral Sir Denis Boyd, and during coffee Boyd slipped out to make a phone call. On his return he announced, “All fixed, you will join the WRNS here in Portsmouth!”
On Sunday, September 3, 1939 she caught an evening train to Portsmouth. It was the first night of blackout, there were no lights on the train but as it stopped at each station she saw the red glow of cigarettes of the pensioners, who had been told to report to their depots.
In Portsmouth with her large suitcase she was given a lift two Royal Marines, getting into their car before she realised how drunk they were, and entering the gates of HMS Vernon without stopping, and drawing up outside Vernon House with a flourish, just missing her uncle who was setting out to search for her. On the Monday Shakespear started as a Wren Writer, and when a magnetic mine was recovered from the mud at Sheerness and brought to Vernon, she spent many hours taking shorthand notes and minutes of secret meetings.
In March 1940 she was selected for promotion and trained at Greenwich. For a short time she was a cipher officer in Portsmouth during the Norwegian campaign, and in May 1940 she volunteered for duty in Harwich during the evacuation of Dunkirk, dealing with thousands of exhausted returning soldiers. When invasion threatened, Shakespear was taught to fire one the few rifles available. She was there for 18 enjoyable months, with lots of dinghy sailing and tennis, swimming and dancing at a nearby Butlin’s. Harwich-based minesweeping trawlers were manned by the RNVR and in harbour most evenings and, she recalled, they were a hospitable lot.
At the beginning of 1942, Shakespear was appointed to Lord Louis Mountbatten’s newly formed Combined Operations Headquarters. At first she was one of twelve, and Mountbatten made a point of introducing them to visitors, including Winston Churchill and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, but when she left nine months later the staff had grown to several hundred.
After Algiers, Shakespear, suffering from shingles, was sent to convalesce on the Suez Canal, where there was little to do until her friends from Harwich days arrived for mine sweeping duties and there was renewed opportunity for sport.
Back in London on VE day she remembered the crowds outside Buckingham Palace, and the long, early morning walk back to duty. She was secretary to the submarine ace, Commander Michael Rimington, DSO and bar, and they married that year. Five admirals attended her wedding, two of whom were her uncles, and the much decorated Admiral Sir George Creasy endorsed her new husband’s record, “He has married his WRNS Secretary, a 2nd Officer with a war record almost as distinguished as his own.”
Rimington put the same energy into being a naval wife: the good life, when money was short, restoration of a rundown cottage, voluntary work, and travel, and for over fifty years she was a member of the Mothers’ Union.
Rimington, who died on January 17, 2010, was widowed in 1984 and she is survived by her three children of whom one is a Captain, RN. A son-in-law is also a Captain, RN and a grandson is a Lieutenant Commander.