Books > History > World history > From 1900 > Second World War
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Wingfield at War (Hardcover, New)
Loot Price: R476
Discovery Miles 4 760
You Save: R34
(7%)
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Wingfield at War (Hardcover, New)
Series: British Navy at War and Peace, 1
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List price R510
Loot Price R476
Discovery Miles 4 760
You Save R34 (7%)
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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Total price: R496
Discovery Miles: 4 960
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...It is remarkable that one man should have been involved in so
much action in so few years...I commend his biography to the
reader: ...by any standard he was a hero, and he tells his life's
story with modesty and humour. Extract from the Foreword by Admiral
Lord Boyce 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 minefield, 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 - and barely survived the subsequent, vicious
counterattack after Taurus was severely damaged and became stuck in
the mud at the bottom. Any one of these incidents would have
merited a place for Wingfield in the history of naval warfare and
the pantheon of submarine heroes. The Royal Navy's most senior
submariner, Admiral Lord Boyce, notes in his Foreword that the
diesel-powered submarines in which both men served were not so
different, but the risks which Wingfield took in wartime were
greater and Lord Boyce admired the way in which Wingfield led his
crew and was loved by them. Many men were burned-out by the war,
but in the postwar years Wingfield enjoyed a successful peacetime
career in the Royal Navy where, finally, his personal qualities and
his diplomacy were put to the test as a naval attache. In
retirement Wingfield was well-known for hosting lively beef and
Stilton lunches at the London Boat Show! He was also one of the
last of the generations of Anglo-Irish families who served the
Crown and provided officers and men for the Army and the Navy, and
his story additionally gives some insights into his early days,
especially with regard to being a young officer in the Royal Navy
in the 1930s.
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