Bill King (Royal Navy Officer)
William Donald Aelian "Bill" King, DSO & Bar, DSC (23 June 1910 – 21 September 2012) was a British naval officer, yachtsman and author. He was the oldest participant in the first solo non-stop around the world yacht race, the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, the only person to command a British submarine on both the first and last days of World War II. and the last surviving British World War II submarine commander at the time of his death.
Brought up by his mother and grandmother, King went to the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. He was first assigned to the battleship Resolution, and later became commanding officer of the submarine Snapper. He served on three separate vessels in World War II, and was promoted to commander and awarded seven medals during the war. King not only survived World War II, but succeeded in a singlehanded circumnavigation in 1973 on his third attempt. During the latter journey, he managed to reach port despite a collision with a large sea creature 400 miles (640 km) southwest of Australia.
Read more about Bill King (Royal Navy Officer): Family Background and Childhood, Early Naval Career, World War II, Post-war Life and Marriage, Solo Circumnavigation, Later Life, Published Works
Famous quotes containing the words bill, king and/or navy:
“The house with no child in it is a house with nothing in it.”
—Welsh proverb, as quoted in The Joys of Having a Child by Bill and Gloria Adler (1993)
“War is a fevered god
who takes alike
maiden and king and clod....”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seamen.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)