Vice-Admiral Sir Arthur Hezlet RIP

Kyt · Nov 8, 2007

Renowned submariner who served with the ‘Fighting 10th' in the Mediterranean

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article2834675.ece

Submariners have always regarded “Baldy” Hezlet with a mixture of affection and awe, recognising a man who, with an almost obsessive concentration, devoted his powerful and jesuitical intellect towards the promotion of the submarine as an instrument of naval strategy.

Arthur Richard Hezlet, the son of a major-general, joined the Royal Navy at the age of 13 in January 1928, going to sea in 1932. By 1936 he was the correspondence officer, or “office boy”, in the destroyer Daring, soon to volunteer for submarines.

By the outbreak of war he was second-in-command of the newly built submarine Trident and by the spring of 1940 was engaged in operations in the Norwegian Sea, as the Germans launched their pre-emptive occupation of Norway. For his work, Hezlet received a mention in dispatches. With the conclusion of the disastrous Norwegian campaign and the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk, Trident was positioned in the Channel in anticipation of a German invasion.

In command of the obsolete coastal submarine H44 from December 1940, Hezlet gained enough command experience to be sent out to Malta where as “spare CO” he temporarily commanded the small U-class submarine Unique, one of the 34 of this class that served in the renowned “Fighting 10th” submarine flotilla based at Malta throughout the intensive campaigns of 1941 to 1944. Eleven were lost, but the flotilla sank or damaged over a million tons of Axis shipping. After one patrol, Hezlet was awarded the DSC for sinking the 11,000 ton merchantman Esperia, and then transferred to the Ursula for a further six patrols, returning home for refitting.

In command of the Trident in May 1942, Hezlet undertook a rare task for a submarine, operating mainly on the surface as escort for the large convoy PQ16 to North Russia. In September 1942 he found himself on the shores of the Clyde as a special service instructional training officer.

The establishment to which he had been appointed bore a name that almost certainly had not been approved by the Admiralty Ship Names Committee — HMS Varbel. The eponymous Commanders Varley and Bell were experts in the engineering and development of midget submarines and “chariots”, two-man battery-driven submersibles carrying large explosive charges. One of Hezlet's shipmates was Lieutenant Godfrey Place, who was to earn the VC a year later for his midget submarine attack on the battleship Tirpitz in Trondheim fjord. Hezlet made a number of valuable and innovative contributions to the engineering, training and tactics that were to be used in this new form of undersea warfare.

In command of the submarine Trenchant based at Trincomalee, Ceylon, he took part in a number of operations in the East Indies and the Pacific theatres that earned him his first DSO. Among these was the sinking of U859, on September 22, 1944, near the Sunda Strait as a result of Enigma intelligence information. With Hezlet's experience of chariots, Trenchant was effective in transporting them to Japanese-held harbours where they sank coastal shipping — until the risks to the crews in terms of what happened to them in Japanese hands if they were captured foreclosed this method of attack. Hezlet also sank by torpedo or gunfire a number of submarine chasers, landing craft, coasters and a minelayer.

On June 8, 1945, in the Banka Strait off Sumatra, Hezlet carried out one of the most exceptional torpedo attacks of the war, intercepting, again as a result of Enigma intelligence, the Japanese heavy cruiser Ashigara in dangerously flat calm weather, having volunteered to take his submarine into mined and shallow water. To ensure success Hezlet fired eight torpedoes from his bow tubes, turning to release two more from his stern tubes. Five hits were obtained and the Ashigara capsized and sank. This skilful attack was a fitting end to the wartime campaigns of British submarines. Hezlet was ordered to proceed immediately to Subic Bay in the Philippines to be awarded the US Legion of Merit by Admiral James Fife, USN, commander of all Allied submarines in the southwest Pacific. He was subsequently awarded a bar to his DSO.

After the war he had a tour at the Admiralty and attended the naval and tri-service staff courses. His first surface ship command was the destroyer Scorpion, which had been equipped with the prototype of a new automated anti-submarine weapon system comprising a steerable sonar, a fire-control computer and a powerful mortar that was to be an acknowledged British success for the next 20 years. That this plum with its important evaluations and foreign demonstrations went to a submariner was a tribute to Hezlet's reputation at that time.

Hezlet enjoyed another tour in the Admiralty and as Chief Staff Officer to the Flag Officer Submarines, before commanding the destroyer Battleaxe and the 6th Destroyer Squadron. In 1956 his intellect was acknowledged by his appointment as Director of the Naval Staff College, a period which is remembered by his students as lacking the usually restful nature of such courses.

After commanding the cruiser Newfoundland he was appointed Flag Officer Submarines in July 1959, holding the post, unusually, for three years. This was the period when important decisions about Britain's nuclear deterrent were being made. The Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile began to be in doubt in October 1960 and opinions were veering towards a solution comprising a British-built nuclear submarine equipped with American Polaris missiles. Meanwhile, Britain's first nuclear attack submarine, Dreadnought, was launched in the spring of 1960. The task of the Flag Officer Submarines was to provide authoritative opinion and formulate plans for support and training facilities in a force as yet unfamiliar with nuclear propulsion.

Hezlet's final tour was Flag Officer Scotland and Northern Ireland. He was appointed KBE before his retirement to the family home in Co Londonderry in 1964. He was for 25 years the Royal British Legion's Northern Ireland president.

Hezlet wrote a number of books on the philosophy of sea power as well as a history of the B Special police force. His book The Submarine and Sea Power (1967) foresaw the continuing invulnerability of the seaborne nuclear deterrent, despite the technological progress of the intervening years. In 2002 he published British and Allied Submarine Operations in World War II, an authoritative reference book, dealing with every patrol undertaken and its results, while also setting Allied submarine activity as a whole against the prevailing strategic background.

He married Anne Clark in 1948 and is survived by her and two daughters.

Vice-Admiral Sir Arthur Hezlet, KBE, CB, DSO and Bar, DSC, submariner, was born on April 7, 1914. He died on November 7, 2007, aged 93
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