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Rear-Admiral Hubert Lynes (27 November 1874 – 10 November 1942) was a British admiral whose First World War service was notable for his direction of the Zeebrugge Raid and Ostend raids designed to neutralise the German-held port of Bruges, which was used as a raiding base against the British coastline by Imperial German Navy surface and submarine raiders. Throughout his service life and during retirement, Lynes was a noted ornithologist who contributed to numerous books on the subject and was in his lifetime considered the leading expert on African birds.
An experienced naval officer, Lynes was given command of the brand-new cruiser , which completed construction in early 1915 and served in the Atlantic for the next year. In 1916 whilst hunting German , Penelope was torpedoed and badly damaged by , forcing extensive repairs. This freed Lynes for a new post, that of second in command to Admiral Roger Keyes, a dynamic officer who was in charge of the "Allied Naval and Marine Forces" a department of the Admiralty which planned and conducted raids and commando-style operations on German-held territory.
At the war's end, Lynes was present at the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow as Captain of the new and powerful battleship . His war decorations included investiture as a Companion of the Order of the Bath and as a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George as well as being made a Commander of the Legion d'honneur and the Order of Leopold (Belgium) and awarded the Croix de Guerre. In 1919, Lynes accepted retirement and left the sea, settling in the countryside with the rank of rear admiral.
In 1910 whilst on home duty, Lynes participated in an expedition to the Pyrenees and whilst stationed in China made numerous observations of the birds of the region. These notes and collections were however all lost in the torpedoing of the Penelope in 1916. Upon retirement, Lynes travelled to the Darfur region of the Sudan, and made extensive observations of Bird life there, compiling a study which was published in 1930 in The Ibis as Review of the genus Cisticola. This work was well received and Lynes was awarded the Godman-Salvin Medal for his contributions to the study of African ornithology. In the same year he served as vice-president of the British Ornithiologists' Union and was made a correspondence member of the American Ornithologists' Union. He had also been made a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Zoological Society of London.
In 1936 he made a further study of birds in Egypt, but two years later he contracted shingles in Sudan and was forced to return home with his health ruined. He never again travelled and entered a long convalescence from which he never fully recovered. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Lynes was posted as senior naval officer in North Wales, a light administrative post given his ill health, and one which he was nevertheless unable to sustain, retiring again in 1941. He continued writing on birds of the Sudan right up until his death, in November 1942 aged 67 at a naval hospital. He was buried under a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone in St. Seiriol Churchyard, Holyhead. Rear Admiral Hubert Lynes, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Retrieved 14 September 2007 His health had never recovered from his illness in Africa. He never married and lived his entire life with his maiden sister, who cared for him when not at sea.
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