Wingfield at War: Vol. I

Captain Mervyn Wingfield was one of the last of his generation of submariners who made their reputation in the Second World War. Pre-war he had served on the China station and lived the riotous life of a young officer; in the war he commanded three submarines, Umpire, Sturgeon and Taurus, survived a collision in the North Sea, spent a winter in the Arctic, penetrated the Norwegian fjords submerged through a mine-field, surfaced off St Nazaire in view of German guns to act as a navigation marker for the raiding force, fought cavalry in the northern Aegean, and later, off Penang, was the first British submariner to sink a Japanese submarine, barely surviving the subsequent, vicious counterattack. Any one of these incidents would have merited a place for Wing-field in the history of naval warfare and the pantheon of submarine heroes.

In the post-war years Wingfield enjoyed a successful peacetime career in the Royal Navy where his personal qualities and diplomacy were put to the test as a naval attaché. The story of Wingfield's incredible achievements in the face of almost overwhelming adversity make enthralling reading.