Vice Admiral Sir Alan Wedel Ramsay McNicoll, KBE, CB, GM (3 April 1908 – 11 October 1987) was a senior officer in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and a diplomat.

He served aboard HMS King George V from 1942, sailing in support of several Arctic convoys and taking part in the Allied invasion of Sicily.

In 1952, McNicoll chaired the planning committee for the British nuclear tests on the Montebello Islands, and was appointed commanding officer of HMAS Australia.

As CNS, McNicoll had to cope with significant morale and recruitment issues occasioned by the February 1964 collision between HMAS Melbourne and Voyager and, furthermore, oversaw an extensive modernisation of the Australian fleet.

[9] Advanced to acting sub-lieutenant in September 1928, McNicoll's appointment to the United Kingdom concluded the following year, at which point he returned to Australia and was initially posted to the land base HMAS Cerberus.

Completing a twelve-month posting aboard HMAS Canberra between 1932 and 1933, McNicoll decided to specialise as a torpedo officer and returned to the United Kingdom in order to undertake the long course at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth.

[16] On 14 September 1939, eleven days after the outbreak of the Second World War, McNicoll was posted to HMS Victory, the flagship of Admiral Sir William James, the Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.

[5] McNicoll ultimately served on Fiji for six months before being attached to HMS Medway, a submarine depot ship stationed at Alexandria, Egypt, in October 1940.

[5] On one such occasion, he was tasked with disarming the captured Italian submarine Galileo Galilei, which entailed removing the inertia pistols from eight torpedoes that had badly corroded.

[19] King George V later provided a covering force for two further convoys during early 1943, before being transferred to the Mediterranean during May in preparation for Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily.

Prior to the invasion, King George V, along with HMS Howe, had executed a bombardment of Trapani and the islands of Favignana and Levanzo on the night of 11–12 July, as part of a deception suggesting landings on the west coast of Sicily.

[8][9] From November 1945 until July 1947, Hobart spent nine months operating in Japanese waters over three distinct periods as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force.

The ship was placed in reserve from December 1947,[25] and McNicoll briefly transferred to HMAS Penguin before assuming the post of Director of Plans and Operations at the Navy Office in Melbourne on 6 January 1948.

[5][8][9] During McNicoll's tenure as commanding officer of Warramunga, the ship operated in Australian waters as part of the Australia Station, sailing to New Zealand for a visit during March 1950.

In February and March, HMAS Australia served as part of the escort for the Royal Yacht Gothic during the Australian leg of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation tour.

[28] The cruiser was presented with the Gloucester Cup on 25 March as the ship "considered to be foremost in general efficiency, cleanliness, seamanship and technical training" during the year of 1953.

[28] While in the Coral Sea, a Dutch naval ship was discovered to be incapacitated off the coast of Hollandia, Netherlands New Guinea, and was consequently towed by Australia to Cairns.

[5][28][31] McNicoll relinquished command of HMAS Australia in July 1954 before the cruiser was paid off and marked for disposal the following month, and he briefly returned to duties at the Navy Office.

[5][9][10] He returned to Australia in February 1958 and was selected to serve as Deputy Secretary (Military) at the Department of Defence; McNicoll's rank was made substantive in July that year.

Completing his term on the Naval Board, McNicoll was posted as Flag Officer Commanding HM Australian Fleet on 8 January 1962 and hoisted his standard aboard HMAS Melbourne, the flagship of the RAN.

The Army and Air Force opposed McNicoll's stance, and the government ultimately concluded that there was no strategic requirement for a new carrier in light of agreements contained in the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.

[32] In any event, McNicoll experienced a particularly demanding tenure as Fleet Commander since the RAN was in the process of a complete overhaul of its order of battle and, as a consequence, he had to manage the introduction and deployment into service of six Ton-class minesweepers acquired from the Royal Navy, along with the first batch of Westland Wessex helicopters and modernised afloat support capabilities.

However, this post proved short-lived with his appointment as Flag Officer-in-Charge East Australia Area, headquartered at the land base HMAS Kuttabul in Sydney, from June that year.

[35] McNicoll's term as CNS was characterised by a period of heightened activity for the RAN in light of the Australian commitments to the Indonesia–Malaysia Konfrontasi and the Vietnam War.

He furthermore had to oversee an extensive modernisation of the fleet, with the introduction into service of the Perth-class destroyers, Attack-class patrol boats, and the initial batch of Oberon-class submarines.

He criticised the lack of foresight in earlier decisions that had led to "inconsistencies and inadequate estimating" in the future needs of the RAN, which had consequently left the fleet outdated and minimal.

A series of mishaps and accidents over the previous decade led to what naval historian Tom Frame termed as "an appreciable erosion of public confidence in the navy's professional standards".

[43] McNicoll was eager for a RAN contribution to the Vietnam War and, in July 1966, proposed that the four Australian minesweepers operating out of Singapore be deployed to Vietnamese waters since Konfrontasi was at an end and the vessels were no longer necessary in that area.

Federal politician Sam Benson questioned the Australian use of the British ensign before parliament in October 1965, and McNicoll later raised the issue with the Naval Board.

The trip culminated with a two-week visit to Vietnam, and McNicoll was present in Saigon when the city was attacked by Viet Cong forces as part of the Tet Offensive.