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 , and later became commanding officer of the submarine . 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 southwest of Australia . Family background and childhood . William Donald Aelian King was born to William Albert de Courcy King and Georgina Marie MacKenzie in 1910 . King ' s grandfather , William King , was Chair of Mineralogy and Geology at Queen ’ s College , Galway . He was appointed when the College first opened in 1849 . Grandfather King was the first to argue that neanderthals were a species separate from modern humans . King ' s father , William Albert de Courcy King , was born in 1875 . He married Georgina Marie , daughter of a " Mr . D . F . MacKenzie , of Collingwood Grange , Camberley , Surrey " in June 1908 . De Courcy King attended Royal Military Academy , Woolwich , and then the School of Military Engineering , Chatham . He received his commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in 1894 . Prior to World War I , his postings included Saint Lucia in the 1890s , where the Engineers constructed gun emplacements and fortified coal stations , and South Africa , where the Engineers built blockhouses ( designed by Major S . R . Rice , RE ) during the Anglo Boer War . De Courcy King was awarded the Distinguished Service Order ( DSO ) in 1916 while a major . During the First World War Lieutenant - Colonel De Courcy King served with the 36th ( Ulster ) Division in Belgium . De Courcy King was killed on 27 May 1917 at the age of 42 , and lies buried at Dranoutre Military Cemetery in Belgium . In April the Engineers had helped prepare for the Battle of Arras , primarily tunnelling and mining of enemy positions . As a result of his father ' s death , Bill King was brought up by his mother and grandmother . His MacKenzie grandmother was a formidable woman who learned to ski at the age of 75 and still sailed in her eighties . Early naval career . After preparatory school , at the age of twelve , King was sent to the Royal Naval College , Dartmouth , in Devon . In the 2006 documentary about the disastrous 1968 round - the - world yacht race ; " Deep Water " , King said that he had been a boxer and a " champion long - distance runner " in his youth . From December 1927 to April 1930 , King was posted to the battleship , which served in the Mediterranean . During this time he became a midshipman . From June 1932 to January 1934 , he was posted to the submarine , which served near China . He was promoted to lieutenant in 1932 . In April 1935 , King was appointed first lieutenant of the service vessel , formerly the Polish sailing vessel " Iskra " , used by the Royal Navy at Gibraltar to supply the 8th Submarine Squadron . After seven months , he was transferred to , then to , before being sent to Portsmouth for a commanding officer s ' course at . A four - month stint aboard the submarine depot ship followed , before King was appointed commanding officer of . World War II . During World War II , King served in three submarines of the Royal Navy : " Snapper " , , and . He patrolled the North Sea , the Mediterranean , and the Far East . At the outbreak of the war , King and " Snapper " were sent to patrol the North Sea . King was commanding officer on " Snapper " from 16 April 1939 to April 1940 . On 3 December 1939 , " Snapper " sustained a direct hit from a British aircraft while returning to Harwich after a patrol , but without taking damage . Between December 1939 and July 1940 , " Snapper " sank six ships , mainly in the Skagerrak Strait . These include the tanker " Moonsund " , the merchant ship " Florida " , the minesweepers " H . M . Behrens " and " Carsten Janssen " , and the armed trawlers " Portland " and " Cygnus " . " Snapper " was later lost under command of Lieutenant Geoffrey Vernon Prowse , either in a minefield or sunk by German depth charge s . In 1941 , King served on the T - class submarine " Trusty " in the Mediterranean Sea . On 4 December 1941 " Trusty " unsuccessfully launched torpedoes against a boat which may have been the Italian torpedo boat " Orsa " . From 21 July 1943 to August 1945 , King was commanding officer of the T - class submarine " Telemachus " . " Telemachus " dropped off a special forces unit in western Malaya in October 1944 . Operating from a joint British - Dutch base at Ceylon , " Telemachus " sank the Japanese " Kadai " - class submarine " I - 166 " in the Strait of Malacca on 17 July 1944 . " Telemachus " tracked " I - 166 " for 30 minutes , then fired a spread of six torpedoes . One torpedo hit , and sank the Japanese boat with 89 lives lost ; five men on bridge watch survived to be rescued by the Japanese . During the war , King was promoted to commander , and awarded seven medals , including the DSO on 9 May 1940 for " daring , endurance and resource in the conduct of hazardous and successful operations in His Majesty ' s Submarines against the enemy " , and the Distinguished Service Cross on 6 September 1940 " for bravery and determination during arduous and successful patrols in H . M . Submarines " both whilst in command of " Snapper " . A bar was added to his DSO on 16 January 1945 " For outstanding courage , skill and determination in one of H . M . Submarines in successful patrols in Far Eastern waters " ( specifically the sinking of " I - 166 " ) . In 2006 , he received an eighth medal , the Arctic Emblem . King ended his Royal Navy career as executive officer of the submarine depot ship , an appointment he held from 1 September 1945 to April 1946 . His formal retirement came on 9 May 1948 . Post - war life and marriage . On 1 January 1949 , King married divorceé Anita Theodosia Mouira Leslie ( 1914 – 1984 ) . She was the eldest child of Sir John Randolph Shane Leslie , 3rd Baronet and his wife Marjorie Ide , the Vermont - born daughter of the US ambassador to Spain . Bill and Anita probably met in Lebanon in 1943 , where King served for 5 months as executive officer of the submarine base at Beirut . She was on a skiing trip after doing duty in Africa in the Motor Transport Corps in 1940 – 42 , although a letter mentions her being in Beirut in 1941 – 42 . Leslie - King then became an ambulance driver in the French Army from 1944 to 1945 . For the latter , she was awarded the " Croix de Guerre " in 1945 by General Charles de Gaulle . As Anita Leslie , she wrote over a dozen books , including " Love in a Nutshell " ( 1952 ) , " The Remarkable Mr . Jerome : The Life and Times of Leonard Jerome , Sir Winston Churchill ' s American Grandfather " ( 1954 ) . In 1974 she wrote the biography of Francis Chichester , the first person to sail around the world single - handedly with only one stop . The Kings had two children , Richard Tarka Bourke King ( b . 1949 ) , and Leonie Rose King ( b . 1951 ) . After the war , King took up farming and was an avid fox hunter , as was his wife . In 1946 , the Kings bought Oranmore Castle , a 15th century Norman keep built on Galway Bay in county Galway , Ireland for ₤200 - . Other sources report that Anita Leslie - King was given the castle by her mother , who had bought it in 1946 . For a while , the Kings lived in a hunting lodge outside Oranmore village , designed by Bill , and built while he and Anita went on a " world sailing cruise . " To help combat his wife ' s asthma , King developed an organic farm and garden to feed his family . Both Anita Leslie ' s mother and grandmother had suffered asthma . Solo circumnavigation . By 1967 , King was intent on sailing around the world by himself . He had a boat built for this purpose at Souter ' s yard at Cowes , on the Isle of Wight . King ' s boat , the two - masted " Galway Blazer II " , a cold - molded plywood schooner , was specially designed for him by Angus Primrose . It is not certain whether the boat was named after " The Galway Blazers " , a local fox hunting club in Galway , Ireland , which dates to 1839 . Based on boats he had seen in China , the schooner had a junk rig ( a sail stiffened by battens ) . In this regard " Galway Blazer II " was similar to " Jester " , the junk - rigged Folkboat used by former Royal Marine Colonel Herbert Hasler in the first single - handed cross - Atlantic race ( OSTAR ) . King , Hasler and Primrose had " teamed up " to design the boat , which was displayed " at the London Boat Show in January 1968 . " King ' s intention to sail around the world was overtaken by the institution in March 1968 of the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race . Aged 58 , King became the oldest participant in what was the first organised round the world solo yacht race . In " Deep Water " , King explained that he joined the race as a means of recovering psychologically from fifteen years of service in submarines . This , he said , had left him " a nervous wreck " . He had planned to sail around the world before he heard of the race , which " sort of caught up with me . " An aunt ' s legacy provided him with the means to finance the boat . King was sponsored by the " Daily Express " and " Sunday Express " newspapers . One of the shortcomings of the boat was that it had neither guard rails or shrouds to hold on to . King solved this problem with a steel wire that stretched from bow to stern , to which he clipped a harness . His method was then copied by fellow racers Loïck Fougeron and Bernard Moitessier . King started the race on 24 August 1968 . During the race , King lived on raw food , such as dried fruit stirred into almond paste and green sprouts that he grew on board . He read through the New Testament , the Qur ' an , and Edwin Arnold ' s 1880 Buddhist writing , " The Light of Asia " , as well as " all the best novels , such as Tolstoy . " He said that he did not get depressed during the journey , because of the beauty surrounding him . " You are . . . alone with God . . . there ' s no opportunity to sin " . King lost radio contact during the race . On 31 October , " Galway Blazer II " capsized in waves northeast off Gough Island while King rested , breaking both masts . King had to be towed to Cape Town , South Africa . In 1969 , King again tried and failed to circumnavigate in " Galway Blazer II " . In 1970 , he was ready for another attempt , again using " Galway Blazer II " . Ill - health and hull damage forced him to put ashore at Australia . After departing on 12 December 1971 , a large sea creature ( a whale or shark ) damaged his boat about southwest of Fremantle . " Only his skill and heroic efforts were able to keep the vessel afloat until jury repairs could be made " . King was below deck when he heard a shattering sound and saw the hull below the water line bulge inward and splinter . He rushed upstairs and heeled the boat so that the hole was lifted out of the water . He had to hang over the side and submerge himself to carry out emergency repairs with material that included thirteen ropes , sticky tape , collision covers , sheet copper , and sponge rubber . Then he had to fix the inside of the hull as well . After three days of work , he was able to return to Fremantle , " barely able to limp into port " . The 1970 journey was eventually successful , with King completing his global circumnavigation on 23 May 1973 . In 1975 the Cruising Club of America awarded King the Blue Water Medal in recognition of his feat . The same year " Galway Blazer II " was sold to Peter Crowther , landlord of a Devon pub . Crowther wrote a book about his experiences with the boat , which was lost on 24 June 1996 during the tenth Singlehanded Transatlantic Race from Plymouth , England , to Newport , Rhode Island in the USA . Later life . In September 2007 , King and his daughter Leonie , still lived at Oranmore Castle . His life ' s experiences continue to attract media attention , from film to music to art installation . He was filmed for two documentaries about the Golden Globe Race ; the 1960s BBC short " Golden Globe – Lone Sailor Round the World Race " and 2006 ' s " Deep Water " . His war experiences still fascinate documentary film makers . King was interviewed for two planned productions , a 24 minute episode entitled " To Honour and Peace " for the proposed series entitled " Bravery Beneath the Waves " , and for " The Stick & The Stars : The Life & Times of Commander Bill King " . Most recent attention arises from King ' s interaction with Akira Tsurukame and Katja Boonstra - Blom – the subject of print media articles , an exhibition , and video interviews . Tsurukame , son of the chief engineer who perished with " I - 166 " , in 2004 sought out King . King , Tsurukame , and Katja Boonstra , whose father was killed when " I - 166 " sank the Dutch submarine " K XVI " , together planted a tree at Oranmore Castle to honour the fathers of the latter two . The local paper , " The Galway Advertiser " , dubbed their threeway meeting at Oranmore Castle a " reconciliation " . Subsequently Akira Tsurukame released video material of his interviews with Bill King on the internet . Two installations in July 2006 at the Project 06 art exhibition in Galway referenced King . " Response to Japanese Peace and Reconciliation " was arranged in Swan House , and featured art - works by his daughter Leonie King and grand - daughter Heather Finn . The " Lost at Sea " installation was a collaboration between Galway - based " Cane 141 " , who set stories told by Bill King to electronic music , and visual artist Roisin Coyle . The latter installation has since been exhibited in Dublin , and in May 2007 at Grace Exhibition Space in New York City . In 2009 , Bill King ' s great nephew Luke Leslie produced the short film " King of the Waves " , which dramatised King ' s solo circumnavigation and encounter with the great white shark . It also included interviews with King himself . It was screened before King and his family in Oranmore Galway on his ninety - ninth birthday shortly before premiering at the 2009 Galway , Cork and Kerry film festivals . King died in September 2012 . At the time of his death , he was the oldest surviving World War II submarine commander .