Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Henry Dacres Cunningham GCB, MVO, DL (13 April 1885 – 13 December 1962) was a Royal Navy officer.

He saw action as Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet during the Second World War with responsibility for the allied landings at Anzio and in the south of France.

[3] After the war Cunningham served again as an instructor but was appointed as navigator in the newly commissioned battlecruiser HMS Hood in December 1919.

[3] He returned ashore in April 1921 to serve as commander of the navigation school and followed this in August 1923 by appointment as master of the fleet in HMS Queen Elizabeth, the flagship of Admiral Sir John de Robeck.

[6] He took command of the battleship HMS Resolution as flag captain to Admiral Sir William Fisher, the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet in September 1933.

[6] Duff Cooper, then First Lord of the Admiralty, removed him from his position as he felt he was not making a success of his running of the Fleet Air Arm, and, as he later recorded (5 January 1944) "had not [had] a very high opinion of his qualities".

[12][13] He was given command of the 1st Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean Fleet flying his flag in HMS Devonshire from 19 August 1938 and promoted to vice admiral on 30 June 1939.

[6] Cunningham's cruiser squadron was asked to reinforce the Home Fleet under Admiral Sir Charles Forbes and assigned to the Norwegian campaign.

[6] He took part in the evacuation of allied troops from Namsos in May 1940 and the following month embarked King Haakon VII and his government ministers aboard the Devonshire under orders to take them to the United Kingdom.

The 39 sailors who survived this debacle, and then two days on life rafts on the cold ocean, were rescued by Norwegian ships on their way to the Faeroe Islands.

[6] Cunningham became the Fourth Sea Lord and Chief of Supplies and Transport early in 1941, and he was promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the 1941 Birthday Honours.