Captain George Hunt (original) (raw)

George Hunt, always known as Geordie, was one of the most successful and highly decorated submarine captains of the Second World War.

Allied naval dominance of the Mediterranean was maintained at great cost; German and Italian land-based aircraft frequently rendered surface ship operations unsustainable, thus putting enormous demands upon the Royal Navy’s submarines. Despite many losses from Axis anti-submarine vessels, minefields and aircraft, the “U” class submarines of the 10th Submarine Squadron, which were for a long time based in beleaguered Malta, played a prominent role.

While commanded by Hunt, the Ultor sank seven sizeable ships by torpedo and eight by gunfire as well as numerous caiques and coastal vessels. His record of hits versus number of torpedoes fired was remarkable, exciting the admiration of modern submariners. Ultor must have been getting in close; at one point the CinC Mediterranean remarked, “Considering the paucity of targets this year, the successes achieved by Ultor have been most outstanding, and are due to the consistently conspicuous daring of her Commanding Officer.”

George Edward Hunt’s father was an accountant who spent the whole of his working life in Uganda. Educated in Scotland, and for the Merchant Navy in the training ship Conway, young George saw little of his parents and first went to sea in the Henderson line to the Far East. As a Royal Naval Reserve officer, his training periods took him up the Yangtze, involved him in antipiracy operations and imbued him with an enthusiasm for the Royal Navy.

In 1936 he passed his second mate’s certificate and joined the Blue Funnel line. The next year, as one of those RNR officers known as the “Hungry Hundred”, he was accepted, in order to fill a shortage, for a permanent commission in the RN.

Hunt then qualified as a submariner and, at the outbreak of war, was the navigator of the Unity. In November, he married Phoebe Silson, another child of expatriate parents from South Africa.

After six war patrols Unity was run down by a Norwegian merchant ship off Blythe and sunk in April 1940, but Hunt, with nearly all the crew, survived. He was awarded a mention in despatches for his service in Unity.

Early in 1941 he was appointed second-in-command of the very successful submarine Proteus based at Alexandria and was awarded his first DSC. In March 1942 he flew back to the UK for the commanding officers’ course, on completion of which he was given command of the submarine H50, followed by command of the newly built Ultor.

Ultor arrived in the 10th Submarine squadron in May 1943 and was immediately successful, sinking a ship at anchor inside Augusta harbour in Sicily on the first patrol. In June he bombarded a wireless station on the Aeolian archipelago — remarking the supportive enthusiasm of the inhabitants through his periscope — then sank a large tanker and survived a vigorous counterattack by two destroyers.

He was awarded his second DSC for these early patrols and a mention in despatches for _Ultor_’s creditable role as a beach marker during Operation Shingle, the amphibious assault at Anzio in May 1944. Ultor was constantly on the prowl and constantly adding to her list of hits, often under the most difficult and dangerous circumstances.

On one occasion off the south coast of France, Ultor sank a large tanker which was escorted by no less than nine surface vessels and five aircraft, obtaining hits with both torpedoes fired. Retiring, as Hunt said , “on tiptoe”, Ultor was nevertheless pursued and counterattacked with more than 100 depth charges. It is under such circumstances, with only the skipper able to obtain brief glimpses of what is going on above through the periscope, that the courage and tenacity of the rest of the crew undergoes the severest test, being dependent upon their faith in the young officer in command.

Hunt was awarded the DSO for eight war patrols to February 1944, and a bar in December. After a total of some 32 war patrols, seventeen in Ultor, Hunt, with two DSOs and two DSCs was still a lieutenant aged 28.

At his investiture at Buckingham Palace, the King was pleased to receive the 13 Ultors receiving decorations “all together as a team”.

Receiving accelerated promotion to lieutenant-commander, Hunt finished the war at the Staff College and was then appointed to the aircraft carrier Triumph. Returning to submarines, he commanded the Ambush before being appointed as “Teacher” — the much feared Commanding Officer of the commanding officers qualifying course, known universally as the “perisher”. He always maintained that this was his most enjoyable tour; for two and a half years he was responsible for training and qualifying the new generation, his failure rate being 15 per cent. During the “free for all” phase of training, destroyers were allowed deliberately to turn at speed towards the periscope if sighted. “Just as exciting as the more nail-biting moments in wartime,” he would say.

His subsequent appointments included staff and operational tours with and outside the submarine service until his promotion to captain in 1953 at the very early age of 37.

As a commodore he commanded the frigate Bigbury Bay and the 7th Frigate Squadron as the Senior Naval Officer, West Indies. Although this was a seagoing post, the high diplomatic content allowed him to have his family with him at Bermuda. Subsequently, he was Chief of Staff to the Flag Officer Submarines and retired “with great regret” in 1963.

Emigrating to Australia, the Hunts settled in Queensland and George joined Evans Deakin and Co, Engineers and Shipbuilders. However, in 1966 the British High Commission offered him the post of Senior Commercial Officer for Queensland which he accepted and ran the commission’s commercial office for ten years. He and his wife both became Australian citizens, and George was elected president of the Queensland United Services Institute.

He was universally liked and admired for his modesty and good humour. His wife Phoebe, who was a Chief Wren in the Second World War and whom he married in 1941, died just before Christmas in 2005. He is survived by their daughter.

Captain George Hunt, DSO and Bar, DSC and Bar, submarine commander, was born on July 4, 1916. He died on August 16, 2011, aged 95