| Entry Text: | McGEOCH, Ian. An Affair of Chances: A Submariner's Odyssey 1939–44. 223p., illus. London: Imperial War Museum, 1991.
At the outbreak of war the author was Third Hand on Clyde based in Malta, then Freetown. On returning to the UK in mid-1940 he was appointed First Lieutenant of H 43, acting as a clockwork mouse out of Devonport. After a brief spell with Triumph he took his Submarine Command Course or "perisher" and was appointed to command H 43 now based at Rothesay, then Derry. In 1941 he went to Malta as spare CO and after a brief spell there and some illness returned to the UK to take command of the new Splendid in July 1942. She joined the 8th Flotilla at Gibraltar and later Algiers. After five patrols she was sunk in the Bay of Naples by a German destroyer in April 1943. The second half of the book records his imprisonment and ultimately successful efforts at a home run. |
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