Times Obit - Lt Cdr Barklie Lakin DSO, DSC & Bar RN

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Lieutenant-Commander Barklie Lakin


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Lakin at the periscope of the Safari, which enjoyed an exceptional war record

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  Lakin at the periscope of the Safari, which enjoyed an exceptional war record
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  Lieutenant-Commander Barklie Lakin

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Distinguished submarine commander who fought in the Mediterranean and became chairman of Vickers-Armstrongs after the war
During the Second World War, Richard Barklie Lakin commanded three submarines, two of which took part in the desperate campaign to establish control of the Mediterranean, ensure the survival of Malta and starve Field Marshal Rommel’s Afrika Corps of essential supplies. For his gallantry and professionalism he was awarded the DSO and two DSCs.
At the age of 8 he survived a car accident that killed his father. His subsequent survival through many perilous occasions has been attributed to having been born with a caul, believed by some societies to be an omen of good luck.
After graduating from Dartmouth naval college in 1932 and serving in the cruiser Sussex in the Mediterranean, Lakin volunteered for submarines and was first appointed to the Narwhal to learn the ropes as the “4th hand”. Lakin’s lively hobbies included racing a Bugatti at Brooklands and riding the fastest motorbike then available — a 1000c HRD Rapide — for which he had obtained a one-piece waterproof garment from Barbour. In May 1938 he joined the Ursula as navigating officer, captained by the celebrated Lieutenant-Commander George Phillips, DSO, GM, who, fed up with standard Admiralty oilskins, quite unsuitable for the really wet conditions on the conning towers of small submarines, seized upon Lakin’s garment and adapted it to a two-piece version which, after testing with a fire-hose, became standard submariners’ clothing, famously named the “Ursula-suit”.
Lakin’s appointment to the new submarine Thetis was luckily cancelled in favour of a Lieutenant Frederick Woods who was the torpedo officer on March 3, 1939 when Thetis sank during her initial trials in Liverpool Bay as a result of some enamel paint having blocked a torpedo tube test cock, thus not revealing that the tube bow door was open. Despite frantic rescue attempts, 99 lives were lost.
At the outbreak of war he was appointed instead as second-in-command of the elderly H32, operating in the North Sea. He was mentioned in dispatches before being sent to the submarine Utmost in November 1940, again as second-in-command. Arriving off Gibraltar, Utmost was mis-identified and rammed by the destroyer Encounter and took a month to repair. Subsequently, a successful series of patrols which sank Italian supply ships and landed or recovered agents on three occasions resulted in the award of Lakin’s first DSC, his captain earning a DSO.
Returning home for the submarine commanding officer’s course, or “perisher”, Lakin was appointed in December 1941 in command of the H43 which, with a hurriedly assembled crew of trainees, was deployed with several other submarines to attack the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with the cruiser Prinz Eugen as they made their celebrated “Channel Dash” from Brest to safety in Germany.
He took command of the Ursula at home in March 1942, joining the “Fighting 10th” submarine squadron in Malta during the protracted Mediterranean battle in which British submarines suffered a 50 per cent loss rate. In early November Ursula was stationed off Oran as one of 21 submarines protecting Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa. Later a sabotage team was successfully landed and recovered near Genoa and an anti-submarine vessel sunk by gunfire. Ordered to divert Axis activities away from invasion beaches, Lakin was commended by the expeditionary force commander for his efforts which included bombardments of oil tanks and railways and the sinking of a supply ship by gunfire. In December he sank a large heavily escorted steamer but got too close to another and was run down, losing his periscopes. For his part in Operation Torch and kindred operations he was awarded the DSO.
By April 1943 the tide had turned in the Mediterranean. Lakin’s command of the Safari continued that submarine’s exceptional war record, he being awarded a second DSC for four successful patrols. After acting as a navigational beacon for the invasion of Sicily, for which he was awarded the American Legion of Merit, the Safari attacked and sank by torpedo and gunfire a variety of petrol carriers, barges, a minelayer and minesweeper, expending all her ammunition in a final patrol which the dry official history describes as “audacious”.
Having taken Safari home for a refit, Lakin followed the movement of the centre of gravity of the war with an appointment as British liaison officer on the staff of the American commander of all submarines in the Pacific. Never one for sitting in an office, Lakin went on patrol in several USN submarines, acting as mentor and submarine warfare instructor to inexperienced captains. Some of his experiences were alarming: penetrating into the Sea of Japan through the Tshushima minefield in the USS Crevalle and being surprised and bombed by a floatplane while on the surface off Rabaul.
During his final tour in the Royal Navy, Lakin looked after a host of surrendered U-boats at Londonderry before they were scuttled or scrapped. In 1946 he retired and joined the engineering company Vickers-Armstrongs, where he had successful 30-year career, becoming chairman and chief executive. Always an ingenious man with an enthusiasm for practical engineering that was evidenced by the well-equipped workshop which accompanied all the family moves, he was also known for his enlightened man-management. When asked why there was never a strike at Vickers Elswick, the union convenor replied: “Because the Commander will always see us right.” The Suez crisis of 1956 broke when he was managing Tel el Kebir, the British Army’s huge engineering and supply base in Egypt. While his family was repatriated, Lakin was interned for six months. He later worked for Joseph Isherwood Shipping Architects before finally retiring to the Isle of Wight.
His wife, Pamela Jackson-Taylor, whom he married in 1936, died in 1981. His second wife, Pansy Phillips, also pre-deceased him. His devoted companion, Joy Almond, supported his final 17 years. He is survived by the three sons and three daughters of his first marriage.
Lieutenant-Commander Barklie Lakin, DSO, DSC and bar, submarine captain and businessman, was born on October 8, 1914. He died on March 1, 2011, aged 96


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinio...cle2948587.ece

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Lt-Cdr Barklie Lakin

Lt-Cdr Barklie Lakin, who has died aged 96, was one of the most successful British wartime submariners.

Barklie Lakin at the periscope of the submarine Safari








6:09PM GMT 24 Mar 2011 2 Comments


In October 1942 Lakin was commanding the submarine Ursula during the Allied landings in North Africa. He was on his way back to Gibraltar when, on November 11, he encountered on the surface the German submarine U-73. Lakin fired six torpedoes from a range of 5,200 yards, and, as he later told Time magazine: “Through the periscope I saw ... his stern sink lower and lower, and his bow came up out of the water, right straight up, and woof! We got credit for the sinking and I collected a DSO. That is the standard payment for a submarine.” After the war it was discovered that U-73 had in fact escaped.

On his next patrol, in late November, Lakin was ordered to the Gulf of Genoa with a detachment of commandos. The aim was to distract Axis forces from attacking Allied convoys off Tunisia. Despite damage to his boat caused by bad weather, Lakin reconnoitred the French coast off Hyères, where he found several targets close inshore; but the sea was too rough to set his torpedoes for shallow running.

Off Savona, northern Italy, he spent the day watching the railway, and just after dark closed to 400 yards to land his commandos. They blew up part of the railway line, and when a train “popped up” from a tunnel Lakin shelled it, hitting the overhead power cable which caused a sheet of flame between several gantries. Next he met an anti-submarine schooner, Togo; he engaged her with his gun, boarded her and captured her secret books.

Moving south, Lakin entered the harbour at Maurizio, coming in slowly and soundlessly, on the surface. He could see traffic moving in the town, lovers strolling on the seafront, the glow of a cigarette; and he could hear dogs barking. It was so peaceful that he almost regretted lobbing 25 shells into an oil-tank farm and shelling the pier.

Then, on the morning of December 28, he sank a heavily escorted freighter, and two days later he carried out a moonlight attack on a convoy of three ships escorted by four destroyers. This time, however, he had taken one risk too many: he was run down by one of the merchant ships, which smashed both periscopes, took away the bridge and jammed the conning tower hatch. Thus blinded, rather than attempt to take the route to Malta through minefields Lakin headed for Algiers for emergency repairs, completing the 500-mile journey in six days; he surfaced only at night to use Ursula’s gyrocompass, his only remaining navigational device.

His crew called him “Lucky Lakin”, but he hated the nickname and never believed in it, always insisting: “No bloody luck, just good planning and professionalism.”
Richard Barklie Lakin was born on October 8 1914 into a prominent Warwickshire family which had interests in cement. His father was killed in a motoring accident in France which Barklie, then aged seven, survived with only cuts and bruises. He was educated at Dartmouth .
In 1936 Lakin joined the submarine service — “because I was lazy. Submariners got more pay and had more time in port, and that appealed to me.” His first appointment was to the submarine Thetis, but he was relieved by Lt Frederick Woods, thus escaping its sinking in 1939, when 99 crew and passengers died. When war broke out Lakin was navigating officer in Ursula, on patrol in the Heligoland Bight.
He was mentioned in despatches in 1940 and won a first DSC in 1941 as the first lieutenant of the submarine Utmost. After passing his “perisher” (the submarine captains’ course) and briefly commanding the submarine H-43, he returned to Ursula as its captain in March 1942.
In 1943, while in command of the submarine Safari, Lakin was awarded a bar to his DSC for a series of patrols which Vice-Admiral Sir Arthur Hezlet, in his history of submarine operations, described as “very active”, “audacious” and “successful”; Lakin sank five ships of 11,950 tons in total as well as six smaller vessels by gunfire. Twice he returned from patrols having fired all his torpedoes and out of gun ammunition.
For turning his submarine into a navigation beacon during the Allied landings on Sicily, he was awarded the American Order of the Legion of Merit, “for exceptionally meritorious conduct in maintaining his position in spite of enemy searchlights which played on his vessel from the beaches”.
In December 1943 Lakin was sent on a lecture tour of the United States, where the Time magazine interviewer found him “handsome, whimsical, young”.
Afterwards Lakin was a liaison officer in the US Pacific Fleet, serving in the USN submarines Crevalle, Tinosa and Croaker. He experienced his last depthcharging, by the Japanese , north of the Tsushima Straits in the Sea of Japan in July 1945.
Postwar Lakin worked for Vickers-Armstrong, and in 1956 was heading its maintenance facility in Egypt when the Suez War broke out. Interned by the Egyptians for several months, he lived mainly on oranges and returned to England somewhat undernourished. He then rose to be chairman and managing director of the Vickers engineering interests on Tyneside. During his stewardship there was never a strike .
In his youth Lakin raced his Bugatti at Brooklands and owned a 1000cc Vincent HRD motorcycle, on which he regularly made the journey from Chelsea to Gosport in 75 minutes. On leave before going to America, he found that the bike was missing and his wife told him: “You can get killed for King and Country, but not on that bloody bike.” She had sold it.
During his war service he adapted his one-piece biking suit by Barbour for wet weather on a submarine conning tower; his fellow officers in the submarine service bought similar outfits, which became known as “Ursula suits”.
Barklie Lakin died on March 1. He married, in 1936, Pamela Jackson-Taylor, who died in 1981. He married secondly, in 1987, Pansy Phillips (née Bonham-Carter), who also predeceased him. For the past 17 years his close companion had been Joy Almond , who survives him with six children of his first marriage.



Lt-Cdr Barklie Lakin - Telegraph

[Recce_Mitch]

Lt Cdr Barklie Lakin DSO, DSC & Bar RN. RIP

Paul

[Smudger Jnr]

Lt Cdr Barklie Lakin DSO, DSC & Bar RN. R.I.P.

Tom