Thread: Rear Admiral Courtney Anderson, MTB commander

Rear-Admiral Courtney Anderson - Telegraph

Rear-Admiral Courtney Anderson, who has died aged 92, began a distinguished operational career as a motor torpedo boat captain in the 10th MTB flotilla, a collection of obsolete craft that broke down so often it was nicknamed the "Wobbly Tenth".

He was first asked to return home three Belgian ministers, who had been in London for talks, and bring King Leopold III to England in 1940. Anderson's MTB 67 duly arrived to cries that there were Germans all around, and the ministers had to wade ashore; and when the King saw that it did not have either a cabin or a chart table, he declined to come aboard. The boat went on to Dunkirk to collect Lord Gort, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, who told Anderson to go away and not to trouble him again. So Anderson joined the small craft which were evacuating troops from the beaches.

After months on anti-invasion patrol in the Narrow Seas, and a failed attempt during Operation Lucid to set alight Boulogne and Calais harbours, the flotilla was shipped via the Cape to Alexandria. In the waters around Crete the enemy attacked the wooden-hulled MTBs on May 23 1941; Anderson's boat and two others were the only craft to survive.

Having retreated to Cyprus with his two remaining boats, Anderson found himself also commanding two Swordfish torpedo bombers and a commandeered bus, which represented the sole force waiting for the Germans. When the flotilla was diverted to Syrian waters, one of his Swordfish sank the Vichy destroyer Chevalier Paul. On being sent next to the North African coast, it escorted ships carrying stores to Tobruk until the last of the seven MTBs were sunk in December 1941; two of Anderson's commanding officers and many of his men had been killed, and seven out of the 12 landing ships he was escorting had been lost.

Anderson's 18 months in command had been a triumph of improvisation, with no properly organised base, no certainty of spares or repair facilities, and no reliable source of adequate fuel. But he never lost his verve. On discovering that the canal pilots had an unofficial competition to race through the Suez Canal he took his new boat, MTB 261, through at 47 knots, completing the journey in two hours and 18 minutes, a record thought to stand to this day.

Charles Courtney Anderson was born in Ireland on November 8 1916, the only son of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Anderson of the Australian Light Horse, who survived Gallipoli only to die in the 1919 flu epidemic. Young Courtney joined the Navy in the Exmouth term of 1930, did his training in cruisers and served in the battle cruiser Repulse during the Spanish Civil War. In early 1939 he volunteered for coastal forces.

After his return from the Mediterranean in 1943 Anderson served in the anti-submarine sloops Stork and Scarborough, before being given command of the venerable destroyer Wivern, in which he earned a mention in despatches for his courage, skill and devotion to duty during the sinking of the German submarine U-714 off the Firth of Forth in March 1945. The following year he commanded Loch Killisport during the liberation of the Dutch East Indies, rescuing interned European women and children.

Anderson was intelligence officer to the Flag Officer Commanding British Naval Forces, Germany, until 1949 and then spent two years on the staff of the British Joint Staff Mission, Washington. He was head of section in the Naval Intelligence Division from 1955 to 1957, and naval attaché, Bonn, from 1962 to 1964.

Surprisingly, after his wartime commands, Anderson remained on the "dry list" to end up as Director, Naval Recruiting, and Flag Officer, Admiralty Interview Board. He published numerous articles and short stories as well as a lively autobiography, Seagulls in My Belfry (1997). He was appointed CB in 1971.

Courtney Anderson died on December 8. He married, in 1941, Pamela Ruth Miles, who survives him with their three sons.

MTB 261 was one of the Elco MTB 'lent' to the RN at the end of 1941, shipped to Suez and then taken by their crews through the Suez to Alexandria to serve with the 10th MTB flotilla. In my reading on this unit there was always something about the trip through the Suez that was remarkable - and the thought there was a speed record to be acquired gels.

These boats were fast. Speeds of over 40 knots would not have been remarkable. Even at the end of the war one of them, stripped down I think, was clocked at 52 knots. J ohn Lambert and Al Ross described them in detail in Vol 2 Allied Coastal Forces.

If anyone has any further information about the 10th or 10th/15th Flotilla MTB I am interested. My uncle was CO of MTB 266 which was hit by gunfire in an attack in March 1944.

Pele2009