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  Wallrock saw action off Malta, Crete, Lebanon, North Africa and in the ChannelGuy Liardet

Wartime destroyer officer who survived being torpedoed and bombed in the Mediterranean and was decorated for his actions in the Normandy landings

In a career in the Royal Naval Reserve which was nothing if not perilous, Michael Wallrock took part in many of the most famous actions of the Second World War and was sunk three times.

In 1937 he enrolled in the Thames Nautical Training College, the square-rigged HMS Worcester, where his athletic and leadership qualities earned him the post of Chief Cadet Captain and places in the boxing, rugby and cricket teams.

At the outbreak of war he was a cadet in the four-masted barque Abraham Rydberg which landed him at Barbados to return home and join the destroyerJackal, one of Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten’s 5th Flotilla. Jackal was employed in convoy protection until November 28 when, with others of the flotilla, she fought German destroyers making a tip-and-run raid in the Channel. Javelin, with Mountbatten on board, was torpedoed but survived an engagement for which Mountbatten was criticised for impetuosity but which persuaded the German naval staff that destroyer actions in the Channel were not worth the risk.

At the end of April 1941 the flotilla, now six strong, arrived at Malta to attack enemy supply convoys. On May 2, the Jersey was mined on entry to Valletta, split in two and sank. Using Jackal’s whaler, Wallrock picked up many of her oil-soaked survivors.

After escorting the vital “Tiger” convoy with tanks for the Eighth Army to Alexandria and bombarding Benghazi, the flotilla took part in the campaigns to prevent Crete falling into German hands and the subsequent evacuation, both operations costly in ships and lives, but which rescued more than 16,000 troops. On May 23 they were heavily attacked by Stuka dive- bombers from the efficient Fliegerkorps X and Mountbatten’s ship the Kelly was sunk with theKashmir. At the end of May, Wallrock took ship’s boats ashore to Sphakia and rescued nearly 700 soldiers.

Thereafter, for the remainder of 1941 Jackal fought against Vichy French naval forces off Lebanon, escorted or provided diversions for three Malta convoys and in November was torpedoed by an aircraft off Derna in North Africa. She emerged from repairs in Alexandria in May 1942 and, during operations to interdict Axis convoys to Benghazi, was bombed and set on fire. The destroyers Kipling andLively were sunk. Jervis took Jackal in tow, but the fires proved uncontrollable so Jervis sank her with a torpedo and made Alexandria crammed with the survivors of three ships.

Wallrock was appointed to the Hunt-class destroyerEridge as navigator and in July, with four other Hunts, bombarded Mersa Matruh and sank an ammunition ship. On August 29, while bombarding an airfield, Eridge was torpedoed by an E-boat. Wallrock was in the charthouse laying off the course for home when there was a large explosion. “I thought she was going to roll right over but she stalled at about 20 degrees list,” he said. Without electrical power Eridge was towed to Alexandria by theAldenham — “supremely unpleasant, what with the shore batteries and the Junkers”.

Eridge was assessed as beyond worthwhile repair. Wallrock was lucky to survive his next operation, the misconceived and disastrous assault on Tobruk in September 1942 which, as a result of bad planning and loss of surprise, resulted in the sinking of the cruiser Coventry, the destroyers Sikh and Zulu, six MTBs and MLs and the loss of about 700 soldiers, Royal Marines and sailors. Wallrock had his doubts on his first sight of MTB309: “To get to Tobruk we needed a deck full of 100 octane petrol cans stowed between the torpedo tubes.”

A brief period in the Clydebank-built drifter Romeo — “a rotten little coal-burner” — was followed by appointment as navigator to the destroyer Pakenhamin February 1943, proceeding to Malta for escort duties. On April 16, in company with Paladin, she attacked a convoy southwest of Marsala protected by four Italian torpedo boats, one of which she sank. ButPakenham was damaged and taken in tow. The tow was abandoned because of the threat of air attack andPakenham was sunk by torpedo from Paladin.

Wallrock returned home aboard the destroyer Javelinand received yet another destroyer appointment — this time to the newly built Hunt-class Talybont in July 1943. Operating in the Channel, Talybont fought several engagements of varying success against German torpedo boats and survived a collision with a merchant ship until, in June 1944, she supported the Normandy invasion, being assigned to the American sector off Omaha Beach. With the USS Saterlee,Talybont provided gunfire support to the celebrated assault up the cliff face of Pointe du Hoc by 2nd Rangers, who found that the emplaced guns had been removed days before. They were found elsewhere and destroyed.

Talybont continued to support the invasion, suffering slight damage from shore batteries off Cherbourg in late June and taking part in a successful battle off Le Havre in July. Wallrock was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French and was twice mentioned in dispatches for these actions.

After a period of shore duty, he was assigned to the “lease-lend” Captain-class diesel-electric frigateRupert in which he recalled accepting the surrender of six U-boats in Loch Eriboll on the Scottish northeast coast.

Wallrock became engaged to Joan Younger on VE-Day and they were married on VJ-Day. Rupert was returned to the United States in March 1946, and her crew repatriated in the Queen Mary.

After qualifying as a square-rig master mariner in late 1947, Wallrock helped to run the Outward Bound Sea School, operating the Prince Louis sail training vessel. He then ran a boatyard on the Stour near Christchurch, Hampshire, for ten years. Recovering from a period of ill-health, he excavated and set up the Little Avon Marina, later running charters out of Antibes on the Côte d’Azur in his yacht Cardigrae VI. In later life, while living in Beaulieu, Hampshire, he took up tennis, competing at veterans’ national level into his eighties.

He is survived by his wife Joan and their five children.

Lieutenant-Commander Michael Wallrock, master mariner and destroyer officer, was born on July 15, 1921. He died on February 17, 2012, aged 90