Captain John Gower DSC RN--1912-2007 World Naval Ships Forums Archive

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Captain John Gower DSC RN--1912-2007 World Naval Ships Forums Archive

Captain John Gower DSC RN--1912-2007

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[B][B]Captain John Gower, who has died aged 95, had a distinguished war in destroyers and was later immortalised as the fictional character "Bodger" in the novels of John Winton.[/B][/B] In 1943-44 Gower commanded the handsome new Swift. She was armed with 4.5-inch guns and was part of the famous 23rd Flotilla of British and Norwegian destroyers which escorted convoys through the Arctic to Russia; among these convoys were JW57 and RA47, which had to make the journey in "impossible weather conditions". In giving Gower his command the Admiralty had perhaps shown its long memory: an 18th-century ancestor, the explorer and naval officer Erasmus Gower, had also commanded a ship called Swift, in which he had been shipwrecked in 1770 on the coast of Patagonia; seven years earlier Erasmus had circumnavigated the globe with "Foul Weather Jack" Byron, grandfather of the poet. In a daring operation in February 1944 Gower scoured the Norwegian coast for the submarine Stubborn, which had been badly damaged by depth-charging and lay disabled on the surface. Having located it, he towed it to safety despite coming under air attack. In April he took part in Operation Tungsten, the attack on the German battleship Tirpitz, which was hiding in the fjords. On D-Day Gower was bombarding targets on Sword beach when he saw a torpedo bouncing on the surface at the end of its run; it went on to hit the Norwegian destroyer Svenner, which became the first Allied ship to be sunk on the morning of June 6. Gower was forbidden to leave his station or lower any boats, but he allowed Swift to drift down on the survivors in the water and rescued 80 men. Then, on June 23 as he was returning to anchor off the beaches after a night chasing E-boats, Gower felt a huge thump as an acoustic mine exploded. He was blown off his feet but, as a physical training enthusiast, he knew to land on flexed knees and he avoided injury; many others suffered broken limbs. Swift sank quickly in shallow water but Gower was soon picked up by a rescue boat. When he later applied for compensation for the loss of all his kit, a clerk refused to pay for his swimming trunks - on the ground that these were a personal item of clothing that was unnecessary for a sailor in wartime. [B][B]Gower was, however, awarded a DSC for his gallantry, skill and devotion to duty. John Ronald Gower was born on April 7 1912 in Nairobi, where his father was a judge in the Colonial Service. The young John entered Dartmouth in the Hawke term of 1926. Before the war he served in cruisers and battleships, gaining first-class certificates in seamanship.[/B][/B] jainso31

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