IN THE centenary year of the start of the ‘Perisher’, the daunting test of prospective Royal Navy submarine commanding officers, comes a personal account of command of the submarine HMS Rorqual in the Mediterranean in the Second World War.

HMS Rorqual was commanded by Lennox Napier DSO DSC from June 1941 to December 1943.

Lennox’s son, Christopher Napier, who lives in Petersfield, has compiled an online publication describing his father’s achievements.

It focuses on both the tactically important missions of HMS Rorqual and Napier’s character and approach to submarine command in a sea dominated by Axis sea and air forces.

HMS Rorqual not only brought the first submarine relief to the beleaguered island of Malta but cut off the supply of Tiger tanks to the German Afrika Korps in North Africa, and sank one of the last remaining Axis tankers in the Mediterranean – an act, which, according to Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, made Hitler go red in the face, something considered by Lennox as a lifetime achievement.

With much success but after several narrow escapes Lennox successfully brought HMS Rorqual home when many other submarines did not return.

This is an untold tale of commanding a minelaying submarine in the Second World War.

Christopher recounts the inside story through extracts from an extensive interview for the BBC given by his father and accounts written after the war, all in Lennox’s own words.

Short extracts from publications give the perspective of others on the same events. These all link into a timeline describing what Rorqual was doing on each patrol, and why.

There are maps and contemporary photographs and a foreword by Vice Admiral Sir Tim McClement, who is Patron of the Friends of the Submarine Museum at Gosport.

Christopher said: “The story of Rorqual under my father’s command is a remarkable one, full of drama played out during the most critical and challenging period of the Mediterranean campaign.

“His somewhat unconventional approach to command, life in a submarine in wartime and the perilous strategic situation comes across in his own accounts.

“Although, as a submariner myself, I have always taken an interest in the exploits of HMS Rorqual under my father’s command, bringing it all together in this way inevitably opens one’s eyes to the risks, to the courage and stamina needed to make the best of adverse circumstances, and at the same time to the satisfactions and rewards of what my father said was the best time in his life."

A more light-hearted side of Lennox Napier is to be found in letters written by him to Christian Lamb, a third officer in the Women’s Royal Naval Service, describing wartime life in Beirut, Malta, Algiers and Devonport. He was a talented artist and these letters are illustrated with colour drawings.