to Commander, donning his 'brass hat' on 30 June 1906, aged 31. His first appointment with three stripes, in September 1906, was as commander of the pre-dreadnought battleship , flagship of Rear-Admiral Atlantic Fleet, soon to be commanded by Captain Robert Falcon Scott and flying the flag of Rear-Admiral John Jellicoe. His success in her led to his joining, in the same role, in June 1908, the new battlecruiser , fitting out to take the Prince of Wales to Canada for a seven-day visit. This was soon followed by his becoming flag commander – gunnery adviser – to the Commander-in-Chief Home Fleet, his old chief Admiral Sir William May, flying his flag in the new battleship , where he developed gunnery tactics. When Admiral May was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, in the spring of 1911, Fisher followed as his flag commander, a post that allowed him to live at home with his new wife, cycling the four miles to work, for some nine months. Then he joined the new battlecruiser , fitting out at Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness, but, before she was commissioned, he had left her, being promoted, at the age of 37, to captain on 1 July 1912. "W W", as he was known, joined the battleship , wearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Somerset Gough-Calthorpe, on 10 December 1912. By 1916 she was a 'private ship' (flying no admiral's flag) and, for the early part of his service in World War I, he was still captain of the St Vincent and with her at the Battle of Jutland. He commanded that battleship for three years and five months and became Director of the Anti-Submarine Division at the Admiralty in May 1917, where he stayed until January 1919, having overseen a host of new inventions to defeat the enemy submarine menace. He was appointed captain of the battleship on 2 January 1919, the ship soon to join the Mediterranean Fleet. There, his initiative was put to good use in difficult diplomatic and political situations in Turkey, Egypt and the Black Sea. In August 1919, Iron Duke became the flagship of the new Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir John de Robeck and he asked Fisher to be his Chief of Staff, in the rank of Commodore 2nd Class; he went with de Robeck in the same position to the Atlantic Fleet in 1922, first as Commodore 1st Class and then as rear-admiral. He