The Fighting Captain: Frederic John Walker RN and the Battle of the Atlantic

The Battle of the Atlantic was a vicious and unrelenting struggle which Churchill considered the dominating factor throughout World War II. Captain F.J. Walker, RN, has been described as having done more than any other man at sea to win the Battle, and this book is based on the author's account of Walker's sea battles, written shortly after the event, and on Walker's own reports. A formidable figure, Walker was unrecognized in peacetime but a saviour of his country in wartime, ranging across the North Atlantic from Gibraltar to the coast of North America, from the Azores to the Russian convoys to Murmansk, sinking 20 U-boats. For this he was awarded a CB and was also only the second man in RN history to receive four DSOs. Walker destroyed two U-boats by ramming, three by gunfire and another 15 by depth-charges, and was several times engaged in spectacular night actions. A month after D-Day, exhausted by his continuous actions at sea against the enemy and his successful exertions to keep the U-boats out of the English Channel to ensure the safe passage of the Allied landings, he went ashore in Liverpool following a patrol. His ships and the men he had trained and inspired were already back at sea when he died on 9th July 1944, aged 48. The author was Gunnery Officer on Walker's ship, "HMS Starling".