William Tennant (Royal Navy officer)

Sir William Tennant
Vice Admiral Tennant visiting HMS Colossus, May 1945
Birth name	William George Tennant
Nickname(s)	"Dunkirk Joe"[1]
Born	(1890-01-02)2 January 1890 Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire, England
Died	26 July 1963(1963-07-26) (aged 73) Worcester, Worcestershire, England
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Years of service	1905–1949
Rank	Admiral
Unit	Force Z
Commands held	HMS Arethusa HMS Repulse America and West Indies Station
Battles/wars	First World War Battle of Jutland Second World War Operation Dynamo Hunt for the Bismarck Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse Operation Overlord
Awards	Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath Commander of the Order of the British Empire Member of the Royal Victorian Order Legion of Merit (United States)
Other work	Lord Lieutenant of Worcestershire

Admiral Sir William George Tennant KCB CBE MVO DL (2 January 1890 – 26 July 1963) was a British naval officer. He was lauded for overseeing the successful evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940. Tennant subsequently served as captain of the battlecruiser HMS Repulse, when she searched for German capital ships in the Atlantic. He remained in this capacity when the Repulse was sunk by the Japanese along with HMS Prince of Wales in the South China Sea on 10 December 1941, three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He later aided in the setup of the Mulberry harbours and the Pluto pipelines, a crucial part of the success of Operation Overlord. He died in 1963.