The Fighting Captain

Captain F J Walker, RN, did more than any other man at sea to win the Battle of the Atlantic, a vicious and unrelenting struggle which Churchill described as the dominating factor throughout World War Two. He was a formidable figure and one of the greatest fighting captains in the history of the Royal Navy, sinking twenty U-boats. For this he was awarded a CB and four DSOs, only the second man in the history of the Royal Navy to receive this award four times. 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 at D-day, he went ashore in Liverpool after a patrol. His ships and the men he had trained and inspired were already back at sea when he died on the 9 July, 1944, aged 48. His ships went on to sink another nine U-boats, bring his flotillas total up to twenty-nine, before the U-boat fleet finally surrendered. Fifteen of which were sunk by Walkers own ship, HMS Starling. AUTHOR: Alan Burn was the Gunnery Officer on Captain F J Walkers own ship HMS Starling throughout the Battle of the Atlantic. He has used his own account of the events which he wrote shortly after they happened and Captain Walkers official reports of proceedings. He now lives in Ormesby, Cleveland.