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HMS WALKER

Lt Cdr A.R. Trew SANF(V)

CO of HMS Walker,  29 September 1944 - May 1945

and his officers on Arctic Convoys in 1944-5

After a few months as First Lt in  HMS Versatile Lt Cdr Anthony R Trew SANF(V) - below right - succeeded Lt.Cdr. Arthur Nichol Rowell, RN (on left, below) as CO of HMS Walker on the 29 September 1944. Trew was in command until the end of the war when Lt T W Lancaster DSC RN was appointed CO in June 1945.

Tony Trew was born in Pretoria in 1906 and  left school at 16 to go to sea as an officer cadet with the Union Castle Line before bring commissioned in the South African Naval Service from 1926 to 1929. In 1933 he joined the  Automobile Service of South Africa but remained in the Reserve of the SANF. He married Nora Houthakker in 1931 and they had three sons.

Called up at the outbreak of war in 1939 he commanded various mine-sweeping and patrol vessels until December 1940 when he served for a year as Lieutenant-Commander in the 22nd A/S Group, the first South African armed forces unit to enter the Mediterranean theatre. After two years in a staff job back in South Africa overseeing the repair of naval vessels at Cape Town he asked to be seconded to the Royal Navy. After another spell in the Mediterranean he attended the Senior Officers' Staff Course at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, before being appointed to HMS Versatile and HMS Walker, his first command of a destroyer.

JW.57 RA.57 JW.58 RA.58 RA.59 JW.61 RA.61 JW.63 RA.63

ARCTIC CONVOYS TO THE KOLA INLET IN NORTH RUSSIA Departed Liverpool 20 February and arrived Kola Inlet on 28 February 1944. Departed Kola Inlet on 2 March and arrived Loch Ewe on 10 March 1944 Departed Liverpool 27 March and arrived Kola Inlet on 4 April 1944. Departed Kola Inlet on 7 April and arrived Loch Ewe on 14 April 1944 Departed Kola Inlet on 28 April and arrived Loch Ewe on 6 May 1944 Operation Neptune - June 1944 Departed Liverpool 20 October 1944 and arrived Kola Inlet on 28th October 1944 Departed Kola Inlet on 2 November and arrived Loch Ewe on 9 November 1944 Departed Liverpool 20 December and arrived Kola Inlet on 8 January 1945 Departed Kola Inlet on 11 January and arrived Loch Ewe on 21 January 1945

"Hooky Walker",  Lt. Cdr. Antony Francis Trew, SANF(V), with the Officers and Petty Officers of HMS Walker in February 1945
First Lt Derek William Napper is sitting on the right of Lt Cdr Trew, the CO, and Lt Sandy Powell on his left
Eric Randolph Lawson, with a second stripe as a full lieutenant, is seated second left
Click on the image to view in a separate window and click again to zoom in to identify names and faces
E-mail Bill Forster if you recognise any of these men
Courtesy of John Napper

Officers: Navy Lists,  October 1944 - April 1945
with links to entries on unithistories.com

Arctic Convoys 2: the view from the Wardroom

Napoleon Bonaparte

From left to right: Sub Lt Arthur Dodd RNVR, Lt Derek W. Napper RN and Sub Lt Dacre "Sandy" Powell RNVR Are the three young officers posing as Napoleon Bonaparte or as Britain's naval hero Horatio Nelson? Taken at the Tail of the Bank, Gourock, at the mouth of the Clyde in 1944  Courtesy of Philip Dodd

Horatio Nelson

His officers served under both  Lt Cdr A.N. Rowell and Lt Cdr A.R. Trew but at present we have no first hand account from any member of the Wardroom but as is often the case their sons and grandsons have provided a few brief details and a 16 year old deck hand on a Norwegian tanker provides an interesting first hand account of Arctic Convoys JW.61 which was escorted by HMS Walker and return Convoy RA.62.

Derek Napper was born in 1922 at Abu Road, a railway town in Western India where his father was a civil engineer working for the Bombay, Baroda & Central India Railway (1920-1938). He was 14 when he was sent to Dartmouth and by the time he joined HMS Walker on the 3 October 1944 he had been Mentioned in Despatches while serving in HMS Havock as a Midshipman at the Battle of Matapan and served in the battleship HMS Valiant and the destroyers HMS Ilex and HMS Calpe. He was promoted to 1st Lt, Ececutive Officer, by Lt Cdr Trew before leaving to join HMS Cygnet in May 1945. The two junior officers, Sub Lt Arthur Dodd and Sandy Powell,  were both RNVR called up for service for the duration of the war but Napper stayed on and in 1971 was Commodore D.W. Napper RN, Chief of Staff of the Far East Fleet.

Sub Lt Arthur William Dodd RNVR

This short account of Arthur Dodd's life was contributed by his son, Philip Dodd:

Arthur William Dodd was born at Droylesden in Lancashire on the 4 April 1925 but his parents moved to Nottingham and he attended Nottingham High School where he was keen on sport and joined the school cadet corps.  After basic training Arthur Dodd joined HMS Walker as a Midshipman on 31 January 1944 aged 18. He was promoted to Acting Sub Lt on 4 October 1944 and to Sub Lt on 4 April 1945. He left the ship on 27 May 1945 about the same time as Lt Cdr Tony Trew with whom he maintained contact along with some other shipmates. Arthur often talked of Tony Trew and the Arctic convoys they were on together and the conditions they had to endure. Trew's last report on this young Sub Lt included: “A good and sound officer, mature for his age, who shows initiative, is willing to assume responsibility and possesses marked qualities of leadership and self-assurance“. After a short interlude on shore at Devonport Arthur served on the destroyer, HMS St Brides Bay, with the Mediterranean Fleet until 3 August 1946 and was released from service on 15  October 1946.

Shortly after leaving the Navy Arthur married Patricia Ludlow and moved to London for a few years to continue his education. Arthur obtained a BSc degree in Estate Management at the University of Londo and qualified as a Chartered Surveyor. After a short spell in the civil service, he went into private practice and started his own firm. In the early 1950’s Arthur had two sons, Philip and Peter, and he died in his 70th year on 19th November 1994.

Lt James J Glossop RN had joined HMS Walker as a Sub on 20 May 1943 when Lt.Cdr. Arthur Nichol Rowell, RN was the CO and was promoted to Lieutenant on 16 May 1944. He was the son of an Australian naval hero of the Great War, Capt John C.T. Glossop RAN  (1871-1934), who commanded the light cruiser HMAS Sydney when she sank the Emden, a commerce raider which had created havoc in the Indian Ocean until outgunned by Sydney, set on fire and driven ashore she was  forced to surrender in November 1914. Sub Lt James Glossop took part on Arctic Convoys JW.57 and JW.58 and the return convoys described by ABs Albert Foulser and Bill Perks. HMS Walker did not take part in the D-Day landings but two days later on 8 June escorted Military Convoy E2B2Z which reinforced American forces on Utah and Omaha Beaches.

Joseph Glossop may be the only officer who served in HMS Walker alive today and we hope to give a full account of his wartime service including his memories of these convoys. He left HMS Walker on 23 November 1944 to join the destroyer HMS Penn with the 10DF at Trincomalee for deployment with the East Indies Fleet and stayed on in the Navy after the war and retired with the rank of Lt Cdr in 1969. He is in his mid nineties and lives at a retirement home in Australia

Life between Convoys

Tony Trew and the officers in his Wardroom endured several Arctic Convoys to Northern Russia in HMS Walker and a charming little book written by Roxane Houston based on the diaries she kept during her time as an officer in the WRNS vividly depicts the brief period in their lives together before HMS Walker escorted Arctic Convoy JW.61 to the Kola Inlet. Roxanna was based at the HQ of the Senior Officer Assault Ships and Craft (SOASC) Greenock on the Clyde and was friendly with Jane Price who worked in the Convoy Routing Office dealing with the merchant ships at nearby Gourock. Derek Napper was the brother of a friend of Jane's which resulted in an invitation from Lt Cdr Tony Trew to bring some friends aboard Walker for a party. Derek Napper met his future wife, Isobel Cowie, at this party.

"It was a great evening, full of laughter. Tony Trew was a charming host, Derek Napper, the brother of Jane's friend, showed us all over the ship, and Dacre Powell (usually called Sandy Powell after a current popular comedian) a shy but attentive companion. We all got on very well, and Jane promptly arranged a reciprocal evening in the guest room at Belleaire [the WRNS quarters in Greenock]."
        Changing Course - The Wartime Experiences of a Member of The Women's Royal Naval Service 1939-1945; by Roxane Houston (Grubb Street, 2005).

Roxane and her friends were shocked to see the state of the ship when HMS Walker returned and even more so by the exhausted look of the young officers they had  invited to an early Christmas dinner before they left for the Kola Inlet. Derek Napper would tell his son of 60ft waves and having to clear ice from the superstructure to avoid the ship becoming top heavy.

Northbound Convoys JW61 and JW 63 and Return Convoys RW61 and RW63

At present we have no first hand account of Arctic Convoys JW.61 and return Convoy RA.61 by an officer in HMS Walker but Laurence Downey, a 16 year old seaman on the Norwegian tanker Marathon described JW.61 in his unpublished autobiography. 

Heavily laden merchant ship being escorted north at the start of an Arctic Convoy
Courtesy of David Lawson, son of Lt Eric R Lawson RNVR

Lt Cdr Anthony R Trew DSC SANF(V) Ret Anthony Trew signed copies of his books to Athur Dodd, his former ASCO and to  Lt Eric R Lawson RNVR

"The Middle Watch" 1982
From left to right: Arthur Dodd, Tony Trew, Derek Napper and Eric Lawson
The photograph was taken on Eric Lawson's camera and is dated 1982 on the reverse