Lieutenant Dick Douglas-Boyd DSC

LIEUTENANT DICK DOUGLAS-BOYD

As a sub-lieutenant in the RNVR, Douglas-Boyd joined No 820 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm, in January 1944, remaining with this celebrated squadron of Bismarck fame until the end of the war. Now equipped with the Fairey Barracuda, the navy’s first all-metal dive- and torpedo bomber, 820 embarked in the large carrier Indefatigable and took part in a series of attacks in August 1944 on the German battleship Tirpitz in a Norwegian fiord.
The Admiralty ‘s worries about the powerful Tirpitz and the threat to Murmansk convoys in the Norwegian Sea had prompted a successful attack by midget submarines in September 1943, but heroic repairs had her seaworthy in April 1944 until again set back by a successful Fleet Air Arm attack that month. By August she was operational again, but Operation Goodwood’s four separate attacks by three large and two escort carriers were unsuccessful, only scoring two hits for the loss of eleven aircraft. Taking part in two of these, Douglas-Boyd recalled approaching the coast at extreme low level to avoid detection, climbing to 6000 feet for a diving attack at a target shrouded by a smokescreen, while being shot at by anti-aircraft guns from both sides of the fiord. (Tirpitz was finally destroyed by RAF Lancaster bombers)
Indefatigable arrived at Colombo in December and joined the British Pacific Fleet, completing a force of four large carriers. By this time, 820 Squadron had re-equipped with the American-built Grumman Avenger, a sturdy torpedo bomber that was the spearhead of the Royal Navy’s attacks on Japanese installations in south-east Asia. In January 1945 during Operation Meridian, the largest operation ever mounted by the Fleet Air Arm with ten squadrons of American aircraft and two of British, the attacks over two days on oil refineries at Palembang in Sumatra were devastating. But Japanese defences – fighters, guns and barrage balloons – were intense and over thirty aircraft were lost. Douglas-Boyd recalls the massive anti-aircraft fire and how huge conflagrations made it difficult to find his aiming point, but he dropped his four 500lb bombs on target.
On April 1, Indefatigable was hit by a kamikaze suicide aircraft, killing 14, but thanks to her armoured flight deck, a British design feature, was operational within an hour. Attacks against Formosa (now Taiwan) and runways in the Kyushu islands near Okinawa followed, Douglas-Boyd experiencing a tragedy on May 16 when his 1600lb bomb having failed to release and after talking to his crew, he made a second attack during which his observer ‘Tanky’ James was mortally wounded by flak – a decision the effect of which stayed with him all his life. He was awarded the DSC for his gallantry, skill and devotion to duty.
After the war, Douglas-Boyd sought a career in publishing, firstly as a door-to-door salesman for Hodder and Stoughton before being recruited in 1963 by publishers Michael Joseph for whom he worked for over twenty years as a sales manager and subsequently sales director . Gregarious and an excellent communicator noted for his persuasiveness and charm, his warm friendships with famous authors of the calibre of H E Bates, Dick Francis, Stan Barstow, James Herriot and Spike Milligan went a long way towards maintaining their loyalty to the Michael Joseph brand – in the case of Francis more than 40 books. He was the first to see the potential in Edith Holden’s Country Diary of An Edwardian Lady which ended up selling more than two million copies in hardback. Douglas-Boyd and his well-led team were highly regarded and trusted by booksellers who often ordered over 100,000 copies, numbers unheard of today.
On one occasion taking the glamorous actress Sophia Loren in a taxi to a book launch –“the most exciting moment of my life!” – she noticed a tear in her tights and stopped to buy a new pair. Thrusting the torn pair at Douglas-Boyd, she said: “You’d better auction these, they’ll fetch more than the book”.
During the latter part of his career, Douglas-Boyd was sales director of Michael Joseph’s Pelham imprint, specialising in sports books amongst which were the biographies of many leading sportsmen including the cricketers Viv Richards, Ian Botham, and Imran Khan. He afterwards worked as a consultant with Transword Books and set up his own company, DB Books Ltd
He is survived by his wife June Cole whom he married in 1951 and their two daughters.
Lieutenant Dick Douglas-Boyd DSC RNVR, wartime
Fleet Air Arm pilot and sales director for Michael Joseph Ltd,
was born on November 21, 1922. He died on June 17 aged 88.