Alex Stuart-Menteth

On 28 August 1939,[4] shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Stuart-Menteth joined the destroyer HMS Hunter.[2] Hunter was in Captain Bernard Warburton-Lee's 2nd Flotilla, along with four other destroyers.[1] On 10 April 1940, in a snowstorm, the Flotilla attacked the port of Narvik, held by the Germans.[1] Four German destroyers were sunk and seven damaged, notably sinking SS Rauenfels, an 8,500-ton ship transporting ammunition.[1] Hunter was set alight and torpedoed,[2] leading to her sinking.[1] As she sank, Stuart-Menteth was trapped by a malfunctioning davit with a leg wound[1] on the upper deck.[2] A rating saved Stuart-Menteth, and they were both picked up by German sailors.[2]

Stuart-Menteth was first lieutenant of HMS Somali

Stuart-Menteth was taken to Narvik, at a civilian hospital.[2] He remained in the town until its eventual liberation by the Allies.[1][2] However, whilst he was in hospital, Stuart-Menteth was listed as killed in action, and had an obituary in The Times as such, which he later read.[1] After further hospitalisation in Britain from April to December 1940,[4] on 3 December[4] Stuart-Menteth became the first lieutenant of the Tribal-class destroyer HMS Somali.[1][2] She partook in Operation Claymore, an operation to disrupt supplies, to ferry commandoes to shore, and to capture German code. Somalia brought to a stop Krebs, a German trawler, by firing at her, forcing her to stop.[1] A boarding party found cryptographic keys and rotor machines.[1] This assisted Bletchley Park to decipher several Enigma codes.[1]

In May 1941, Stuart-Menteth again assisted the capture of Enigma material from the German ship München, enabling Bletchley Park to begin to decipher German Enigma codes.[1] Several months later, he was given command of his first ship, HMS Berkeley, a Hunt-class destroyer.[1] Stuart-Menteth joined HMS Aldenham in March 1942, and helped sink the German submarine U-58.[1][2] He was mentioned in despatches[5] on 2 June 1943 as "Lieutenant-Commander Henry Alexander Stuart-Menteth, Royal Navy";[6] after commanding Aldenham in a disastrous mission in the Aegean Sea.[1] In late 1943, Stuart-Menteth took command of HMS Dinosaur, and partook in training officers of landing craft.[1] His last command in the war was HMS Havelock, with which he assisted in the sinking of U-242, for which he was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross.[1]

HMS St. James

After World War II on 13 February 1946[4] Stuart-Menteth became first lieutenant on HMS Birmingham, followed by HMS Superb on 4 September 1946,[4] before being entrusted to the Royal Australian Navy in 1949.[1] There he commanded his last two ships, the destroyers HMS St. James and HMS Obdurate.[1] He went on to work with Lord Mountbatten in Malta, and in 1958 he retired, moving to Scotland.[1] He did, however, operate the Scottish Corps of Commissionaires for close to 20 years, and was chairman of the Edinburgh World Wildlife Fund for 10 years.[2]