It was a tremendous achievement made all the greater because those were the days when German scientists had equipped their submarines with torpedoes that homed on propellers and followed an attacker no matter how he twisted and turned to evade them; and the snorkel, a breathing device that enabled U-boats to stay under water for prolonged periods. The first of the six kills was U-264, commanded by Kapit?nleutnant Hartwig Looks, a veteran submariner. Shortly after dawn one morning, Looks sighted the Second Support Group through his periscope. As the sloops passed, he fired a torpedo in the general direction of the nearest - Starling. On the sloop's bridge, Walker spun around at an excited shout from a lookout to see the track of the torpedo approaching his stern, homing on the propellers. There was no time to increase speed or to take violent avoiding action. His mind raced.
Starling was doomed. With eyes fixed on the line of bubbles, he rapped out orders: "Hard aport....Stand by depth charges....Shallow setting....Fire." Suddenly the air was rent by two almost simultaneous shattering roars. The first came from the depth charges and the second, from the torpedo, which had gone off 5 yards from the sloop's quarterdeck. The depth charges had countermined the torpedo a second before it struck. Walker led the sloops in a plaster attack. The pounding barrage was kept up for five minutes before the evidence of success appeared--a huge air bubble that collapsed to spread chunks of wood and human remains over the sea.
The stuff of legends.
http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/walker.html
