Lieutenant Commmander Kenneth D Kempsell GM Royal Navy

LtCdr Kenneth D Kempsell, GM, who has died aged 83, was an outspoken leader of the Royal Navy’s elite band of mine clearance divers.

On 15th August 1963 a torpedo exploded in the armoury at RAF Kinloss killing two men, severely damaged the building, and a 19-ton armoured roof collapsed onto 24 other torpedoes.  Acid from their batteries leaked onto the floor.   Attempts were made to move the torpedoes without avail, when Kempsell and the Navy’s Scotland and Northern Ireland Disposal Team were summoned.

Kemspell arrived at 1 am on August 17 and quickly established that the type of torpedo was new to him and the only man who could brief him was one of the dead.   Several of the torpedoes were too hot to touch, and he could hear their batteries hissing and bubbling.   Respell recalled “I was amazed that they had not blown up too.”   He reckoned that there was about two and a half tons of explosive ready to blow up at any second.

His advice to demolish the unstable weapons was accepted, but there was little Kempsell could do in the dark, so he went to bed and slept like a log.

At 7.30 next morning, dressed in an asbestos suit, Kempsell crawled into the 20-inch gap between the fallen roof and the torpedoes on which it was resting.    For 71 minutes he worked to place 16 charges around the torpedoes, while the acid ate at his suit.    When he had done, Kempsell crept out and sauntered as best he could in his weighty suit whose visor was by now misted by the condensation of his sweat:  “It would have looked bad to run,” he said, but later he admitted “I have never been so scared in my life.”

Three hundred yards away he lay down behind a hummock and pressed the plunger to set off the charges.    “It was a lovely big bang” – which broke windows a mile away.

For his great skill and courage Kempsell was awarded the George Medal, and his team were recognised by a Special Order of the day for their exploits under his leadership.

Kenneth Douglas Kempsell was born in Glasgow, educated at Spiers School in Beith, Ayrshire, and joined the Royal Navy on November 18, 1946 as a 15-year old Boy 2^nd Class (sic) at the training establishment HMS Ganges at Shotley in Suffolk.

He served in the frigate Black Swan during the Malayan campaign in 1948 and the Yangtze Incident in 1949, and saw service as a sonar operator during the Korean War.  After two years on the America and West Indies station, in Sparrow, and a spell of duty as a Petty Officer in the Training Squadron at Portland, Kempsell was commissioned in 1956 and qualified as a Mine Warfare and Clearance Diving Officer in 1961.

While on the staff of the Flag Officer Scotland, in 1963, Kempsell boarded an Aberdeen trawler where a fisherman had been trapped by a wartime mine which the nets brought in.   Kempsell wrestled for three hours in heavy seas to make the mine safe, and next day crowds lined the shore when it was announced that at 1pm he would take it offshore and blow it up: precisely at one they witnessed the explosion and the column of water which crashed into the sea.

Kemspell was chosen to be the first lieutenant of the Royal Navy’s first  operational minehunter Kirkliston, he served on the staff of Britannia Royal Naval College, next he was first lieutenant of the newly-commissioned mine countermeasures command and support ship Abdiel , and in 1969 he commanded the minehunter Nurton.

In 1973 Kempsell was loaned to the Royal Australian Navy as diving training officer, when he was commended by the Australian Commonwealth Naval Board in 1973 for disposing of hazardous explosive ordnance at Cairns in Queensland.

In 1975-79 Kempsell commanded the deep trials diving ship Reclaim , before becoming staff officer to Tay and Clyde Divisions RNR, during which time he commanded the divisions’ training ships Montrose, Petrel, Walkerton and Hodgeston.

In 1980 he was appointed as Resident Naval Officer, Invergordon and in 1982 Queen’s Harbour Master, Cromarty Firth. When the latter post was civilianised Kempsell won his own job in an open competition, and when the Ministry of Defence put his official residence on the market, he bought that too. He retire in 1986.

There were no grey areas in Kempsell’s character, and he was never known to shed a tear.   It was through his black and white perspective of the work that he achieved his results in leadership, in decision-making and in disposing of mines and bombs, and probably prevented him from being promoted further. He enjoyed television as long as it was news or documentaries, but had no time for soaps.  

Outside his family Kempsell’s love was for this dogs, a succession of Cairn terriers, the latest being Honey and Scruffy, who gave him hours of pleasure. 

Kemspell married Doreen Fluker in 1955 who survives him with their two sons.  In 2008 Kempsell attended the passing-out parade of his grandson, James, at HMS Raleigh, where James’s father was serving as a Lieutenant Commander.

Lieutenant Commander Kenneth D Kempsell, GM, RN, born January 6 1931, died April 19 2014.