[1] Following education at Stubbington House School, Rawlings joined the Royal Navy in 1904 and served in the First World War.

[2] After the war he worked for the Foreign Office and undertook Military Missions in Poland.

[2] He then commanded the destroyer Active and then the cruisers Curacoa and Delhi before becoming Naval Attaché in Tokyo in 1936.

He was appointed in command of the 7th Cruiser Squadron in May, and became Assistant Chief of Naval Staff in April 1942.

[2] He went on to be second-in-command of the British Pacific Fleet with his flag in HMS King George V.[3] He commanded the British Carrier Force, Task Force 57, in the Pacific from 1944 through the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945,[4] and retired in 1946.