The Trade by Rudyard Kipling - Royal Australian Navy

Vale Commander
William (Bill) King
DSO & Bar DSC RN
RTD -
23 June 1910 to
21 September 2012
by Mr Pat A. R. Heffernan
Former Submariner
CMDR Bill King was born in County Galway,
Ireland on 23 rd June 1910. Ireland, at that
time, was part of Great Britain. Bill King was
the son of Lt. Col. William de Courcy King
DSO, who was killed on the Western Front
in 1917. Bill’s mother sent him to boarding
school in England. He disliked his time there.
His holidays were mainly spent in Scotland
with his Grandmother who owned an 1899
fifty-ton yawl, with a crew of five. This is where
Bill developed his love of the sea, especially
sailing.
At the age of 14, Bill entered the Royal Naval
College of Dartmouth to begin his Officer
training. On completion of his three year’s
schooling and initial Naval Cadet training, he
continued his cadetship over the next four
years. He started aboard HMS Nelson which,
at the time, was a brand new battleship,
where he soon became a midshipman.
He then served for two years aboard HMS
Resolution in the Mediterranean. The cadets
were subjected to iron discipline and were
moulded into the kind of men considered
suitable to eventually command ships of the
Royal Navy.
At the age of 21, Bill was sent to commence
Submarine training and joined his first
Submarine in 1932, HM S/M Orpheus, on the
China Station, where he learnt the Submarine
trade. In 1938 Bill completed his Perishers
course (Commanding Officers course) and
was given command of the Submarine
Snapper. He was in command of Snapper
when World War II was declared.
Early in 1939, before World War II began, the
Submarine Snapper paid a visit to Alexandria,
Egypt. CMDR. King went aboard a Dutch
Submarine in port, at the time. He was shown
their invention, a tube which could be pushed
up some thirty feet, e.g. around periscope
depth – “the Snorkel”. When Germany
invaded Holland, they captured the Dutch
Submarine and realising the value of a snorkel,
had their U-Boats fitted with one. CMDR. King
had described this gadget to senior officers at
THE TRADE
EDITION 2, 2012
the Admiralty, on various occasions, but they
failed to take any interest in it!
In one year Bill King completed ten war
patrols, in the North Sea and the Arctic Circle,
off Norway. Turn-arounds between some of
the patrols were less than a week’s duration.
On his sixth patrol, between the 10 th h and 15 th
August 1940, S/M Snapper sank 5 enemy
supply and troop transport ships making
for Norway. Bill fired two torpedoes at a fuel
tanker on 10th August. Both missed, so he
surfaced and sank her with Snapper’s gun.
He picked up six survivors as prisoners of war.
Two of the survivors later died and were given
a dignified Naval burial service at sea.
On 15 th August, while on the surface, very
early in the morning, Snapper came across a
large German convoy, heavily escorted, with
troop carriers and supply ships, bound for
Norway. Snapper remained on the surface and
penetrated the screen of enemy destroyers.
With only four torpedoes left, Bill King used
the old rough rule to calculate the firing of
the torpedoes (i.e. “If the enemy ship is going
slowly, give nine degrees of lead, which
approximates with the width of the human fist
at full arm’s length, or, if the ship is going fast,
use two fists”). CMDR. King estimated that the
convoy was moving slowly, so he extended
his arm over Snapper’s bow and used
his knuckles as a gunsight, firing at seven
second intervals and giving various helm
orders to the control room down the voice
pipe, as the ships appeared out of the mist.
CMDR. King, with his Officer of the Watch,
then scrambled down the conning tower to
the control room and gave the order: “Dive!
Dive! Dive!”. The convoy escort vehicles were
tearing angrily towards S/M Snapper. Each
of his four torpedoes hit and sank an enemy
supply and troop ship, which was a very
remarkable achievement. Snapper took quite
a bit of depth charge hiding, before managing
to sneak away and make it back to her base
at Harwich, where she was given a truly
deserved rousing welcome by all the crews of
warships in the harbour.
After completing ten patrols in Snapper,
CMDR. King became ill and was hospitalised.
S/M Snapper sailed for its 11th patrol with a
new captain and was lost with all hands.
CMDR. King was then given one of the new
“T class” Boats HM S/M Trusty to command.
After working her up (running in both the
crew and Boat), he was ordered to the
Mediterranean, where he carried out war
patrols for the next 12 months. CMDR. King
was then dispatched to the Ceylon Naval
Base, Trincomalee, to join the Indian Ocean
Fleet. Shortly after arriving at Ceylon, CMDR.
King was given orders to sail for Singapore.
He took a spare crew along with him, with the
intention of establishing a Submarine Base
there. Singapore was in big trouble at that
time. He was unable to obtain up-to-date
information and intelligence as to the enemy’s
whereabouts. He arrived in Singapore, on 8th
February 1941, just one week before it fell to
the Japanese, on 15 th February 1941. CMDR.
King managed, with great difficulty, to obtain
fuel, food and some spare parts and was able
to sail out of Singapore, to carry out a patrol,
before the Japanese arrived. He decided to
take the spare crew with him. Had he not,
they would have ended up as Japanese
Prisoners-of-war! His only success was the
sinking of two small Japanese supply ships.
Again, there was virtually no information or
intelligence to assist him.
On completion of that patrol in the China
Sea, CMDR. King sailed into the Dutch
Submarine base at Surabaya, Java. While he
was there, the Japanese attacked the Java
base constantly, over a three-week period. In
one of the air attacks, S/M Trusty sustained
damage to one of her external fuel tanks. With
fuel leaking from the tank, Trusty managed to
sail back to Ceylon on the surface (a distance
of over 3000 miles!), without being spotted
by the Japanese. After docking for repairs,
Trusty tied up alongside the Submarine Depot
Ship, HMS Lucia, where she was re-armed,
stored and made ready for sea again. While
alongside HMS Lucia, when the crew were
having lunch inboard, a large Japanese fleet,
consisting of aircraft carriers, a battleship,
destroyers and frigates, attacked the Naval
base and surrounding harbour. One Japanese
carrier plane dropped an armour-piercing
1000 pound bomb (designed to sink a
battleship) onto HMS Lucia. The bomb went
through two decks without exploding. It slid
along the mess deck, where two Submarine
crews were having their meal. Regrettably, the
bomb’s fin killed one of Trusty’s crew, before
proceeding through the side of HMS Lucia
and into the sea. The crews of S/Ms Trusty
and Truant jumped through the hole and
swam to their Boats. (HM S/M Truant, at the
time, was commanded by Lt. Hugh Haggard,
the nephew of Lt. CMDR. Geoffrey Haggard,
the 1st Lieutenant of S/M AE2, the Australian
Submarine involved in the Anzac Campaign
in World War I. Hugh Haggard was 6 foot 9
inches!).
Shortly after completing a few patrols, CMDR.
King was taken ill. He was relieved of his
command and sent to Malta, as Officer in
Charge of Submarine Operations. He was
there for a month, when the Submarine
Headquarters, due to constant enemy air
attacks, was moved to Beirut. It was there
that CMDR. King first met Anita Leslie, who
was later to become his wife. Captain Ruck-
Keene was, at that time, Captain Submarines
Mediterranean. He later became Commander
of the Aircraft Carrier HMS Formidable and
rose to the rank of Vice-Admiral
Four months later, CMDR. King was sent back
to England to stand by and take command
of a new “T class” Submarine, HM S/M
Telemachus. After completing Telemachus’s
work-up, they carried out three week’s of
secret trials in the Arctic Circle, to test out new
torpedo mechanisms for holding torpedoes to
the saddle tanks. CMDR. King then received
orders to join the Submarine Squadron in
Fremantle, Western Australia, where the
British, American and Dutch Submarines,
along with their Depot Ships (supply,
maintenance and Submarine repair ships)
were stationed. Telemachus sailed on several
patrols, at times dropping off Australian
commandoes and Coast-watch troops onto
Malaya and various islands around the Indian
and Pacific Oceans, Singapore and strategic
information gathering places.
During Trusty’s time operating from Fremantle,
there was a change of 1st Lieutenants. Lt.
John Pope had to return to England to carry
out his Perishers (CO’s) course. He was
relieved by a Lt. Bill Dundas. Lt. Dundas was
a former Midshipman aboard the battleship
HMS Hood, which was sunk by the German
battleship Bismark. Lt. Dundas, along with
Signalman Briggs and Able Seaman Tilburn,
were the only survivors of HMS Hood. (Aboard
Hood were four Australian Naval trainees, who
were also lost. They were part of the Dominion
Yachting Scheme).
During one patrol, on 17th July 1944, CMDR.
King attacked and sank the Japanese U-Boat
I-166. After a concentrated depth charge
attack by the enemy, Telemachus managed to
avoid being damaged and made her way to
Columbo to an overwhelming reception from
the fleet. I-166 was the last enemy Submarine
sunk by the Royal Navy during World War
II. Some of Telemachus’s patrols lasted up
to almost 60 days at sea! Shortly after the
war ended, CMDR. King sailed Telemachus
back to the English Naval base in Plymouth.
War was over and he had completed
almost 13 consecutive years in Submarines,
commanding three of them during 6 years
of war. He was unable to be relieved from
Submarines during the War, due to the
Royal Navy’s heavy losses of experienced
Submarine Captains. At the outbreak of World
War II, Bill King was the youngest Submarine
Captain in the Royal Navy. At the end of the
war, he was the oldest Submarine Captain,
due to the large number of Royal Navy
Submarines which failed to return from their
patrols. He lost so many of his dear friends.
CMDR. King remained in the Submarine
Service for a while after the war. As Secondin-Command
of the flotilla, he accompanied
the new “A class” Submarines on their deep
dives. He then decided that, after two further
years, which made it 15 years continuous
service in Submarines, he had had enough
and he retired from the Royal Navy. He
devoted the rest of his life to sailing and
farming in Ireland, concentrating on organic
farming, as well as ocean racing. Bill made
three attempts to sail solo around the world.
On his first attempt, his yacht turned turtle in
a fierce storm (360 degrees). His mast and
rigging were destroyed and, with a jury rig,
he managed to make it to Cape Town, South
Africa. His yacht was shipped back to England
on a cargo ship. His second attempt had
to be given up at Gibraltar, due to the new
type of mast and rigging, which had been set
differently, following the mishap on his first
attempt (in the hope of improving speed). It
performed okay in light conditions, but was
impossible to handle in the fierce Atlantic
storms. He also experienced back problems.
He was forced to sail to Gibraltar, where his
yacht was shipped back to England. On his
third attempt, at the age of sixty, Bill sailed
alone around the world, via the Southern
Ocean and Cape Horn. He almost did not
survive, due to his yacht being rammed by
a large white pointer shark, down in the
Southern Oceans of Australia (the Roaring
Forties). He managed to make it to Fremantle
for repairs.
In 1949, Bill married Anita Leslie, an
authoress, a cousin of Sir Winston Churchill.
(Churchill’s American mother and Anita’s
grandmother were sisters). Anita was the
lovely lady that Bill had met while he was
based in Beirut. They had two children, a boy,
Tarka Dick and a girl, Leonie.
LIFESTYLE
In 2003 an unusual incident occurred which
brought together three families of wartime
submariners, British, Dutch and Japanese,
and united them in peacetime. On Christmas
day, 1941, the I-166 sank the Dutch
Submarine KXVI. There is a memorial to the
KXVI at the Dutch Naval Base in Holland. In
late 2003, a Japanese-born man, Mr. Akira,
a computer expert, who lives with his family
in the USA, visited the memorial in Holland
and left a message in the visitor’s book,
saying how sorry he was for the loss of the
KXVI, which his father, being the Skipper,
was responsible for. By coincidence, one of
the memorial’s volunteer staff, a Mrs. Katja
Boonstra, was the daughter of one of the
officers of the KXVI. She saw Akira’s message
in the visitor’s book and made contact with
him. She also informed him that the person
responsible for his father’s death, with the
sinking of the I-166, (CMDR. Bill King) was
alive and well. Akira tried to contact Bill, but
At first, Bill wanted nothing to do with Akira’s
phone calls or letters, as he thought that Akira
could be seeking revenge. However, Akira,
with his wife and children, flew to Ireland and
was lucky to have met Bill King’s daughter,
Leonie Finn, at Bill’s castle in Oranmore,
Galway. He then met up with Bill King, who
made him very welcome. A peace tree
planting ceremony was held at Bill’s home
in Oranmore castle, with Bill’s family, Akira’s
family and Mrs. Katja Boonstra’s family being
present, to mark the occasion. Later, a special
service was held at the Dutch Naval Base.
A third ceremony was also held in Japan.
(Unknown to Bill, at the time, there were 7
survivors from the I-166). All three occasions
were filmed and made into DVDs.
On 23 rd June 2010, CMDR. Bill King
celebrated his 100 th birthday at his home,
Oranmore Castle, in Oranmore, Galway,
Ireland. Bill has written two books on his
submarine experiences, one book on his
solo around the world epic, two books on
sailing, which incorporated the solo Atlantic
races, and, at 87 years of age, he wrote
his first novel. He is the winner of the Paul
Hammond Cup, the Sir Alec Rose Trophy and
the Sir Francis Chichester Trophy for the most
outstanding lone sailor’s performance. He also
justly deserved his two wartime Distinguished
Service Orders and one Distinguished Service
Cross!
Commander Bill King DSO + Bar, DSC RN
Rtd. is a very extraordinary and exceptional
man.
Note: The information for this biography has
been obtained from CMDR. King’s four books
that he wrote, as well as that which was
passed on to me personally by Bill on his visits
to Melbourne and when my wife and I visited
his home in Ireland.
THE TRADE
EDITION 2, 2012