Capt John Gower

Nov 26 2007 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

CAPT John Gower, who has died, aged 95, had an action- packed and distinguished wartime Royal Naval career. A character, he was fictionalised as Lt-Com Robert Badger, “the Artful Bodger”, in John Winton’s satirical novels about naval life, We Joined the Navy. When filmed, Gower was played by Kenneth More.

Gower was also uncle of the English cricketer David Gower (whose father Dicky was a colonial judge) and he was at the D-Day landings where his younger brother, Derek, was killed.

As commander of the destroyer, HMS Swift, in 1943-44, he was in the 23rd Flotilla of British and Norwegian warships escorting convoys through the Arctic to Russia, often in horrific weather.

Possibly due to the Admiralty’s long memory, Gower was appointed to HMS Swift as his 18th- century ancestor, the explorer Erasmus Gower commanded an earlier Swift, in which he was shipwrecked in Patagonia.

In 1944, while off Norway, Gower successfully located the lost, disabled British submarine HMS Stubborn and towed her to safety under attack. He also took part in Operation Tungsten, attacking Germany’s battleship Tirpitz, hidden in the fjords.

On D-Day, bombarding Sword beach, he saw a torpedo sink the Norwegian destroyer, Svenner. Forbidden to leave his station or lower boats, with great imagination, courage and compassion, he let Swift drift to the survivors and rescued 80 men.

Swift was blown up by an acoustic mine returning from the beaches, with 44 killed. He was refused compen-sation for loss of his swimming trunks, being deemed “personal clothing”, but he was awarded the DSC. Returning to Arctic convoy duty, he was mentioned in dispatches twice.

After the war, he was course officer at Eaton Hall, near Chester, temporary home of the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, where he was regarded as one of the greatest trainers of men, tutoring many future admirals.

At short notice in 1955, he was told to take command of HMS Diana to monitor radioactivity from British Pacific nuclear tests off western Australia. Twice HMS Diana steamed through the fall-out. After retirement, he campaigned for his crew members and families affected by radiation.

Capt John Gower, DSC, Naval officer;born, April 7, 1912,died, November 2007