![Martin Wemyss commanding the destroyer Norfolk in 1973](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/obituaries/2022/10/31/TELEMMGLPICT000313209772_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqO9mzsql25kfrZO7RttCr2QGttdw_ifg_svUZ-JVMBjA.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Rear Admiral Martin ‘Whisky’ Wemyss, who helped to make the ‘perisher’ course a daunting prospect for aspiring submarine captains – obituary
Invited to Princess Elizabeth’s 21st-birthday party, he arrived late at the wrong entrance and bumped into an amused King George VI
![Martin Wemyss commanding the destroyer Norfolk in 1973](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/obituaries/2022/10/31/TELEMMGLPICT000313209772_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqO9mzsql25kfrZO7RttCr2QGttdw_ifg_svUZ-JVMBjA.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Rear Admiral Martin “Whisky” Wemyss, who has died aged 94, was “teacher” on the make-or-break course for would-be submarine captains known as “the perisher”.
Three times a year from 1961 to 1963, for 15 weeks at a time, Wemyss would take six students – mostly British but with some overseas students – on the Commanding Officers’ Qualifying Course (COQC). The sobriquet “perisher” was derived from its initial name, Periscope School. Wemyss, formally known as commanding officer, was “teacher”.
As a highly proficient and respected submariner he recognised that the course he had inherited differed little from that which his father had undertaken in 1925. He was determined to apply standards vigorously, and under him there was a higher-than-average failure rate, which shifted the course’s reputation toward notoriety and gave the name “perisher” a darker connotation.
Wemyss tested skilled submariners to see if they had the nous and the character to command a submarine safely and effectively. Visits and lectures were followed by drills on an attack simulator and practical experience at sea on manoeuvres and operations.
![On midget submarine XE7 at Gareloch](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/obituaries/2022/10/31/TELEMMGLPICT000313209774_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqDfnT11g5XZty1Nobnb9oJtFC7C2JGVX5bC8Msl5Xws4.jpeg?imwidth=350)
“The job of teacher,” Wemyss wrote, “was not just to teach procedures, tactics and the like, and to pass on his own experience, but to make sure we all remained alive while the students still had their L-plates on. Passing or failing the course was largely determined by the student himself. He was put through an increasingly tiring and testing time, [and] if he could establish his own confidence and relax, he would pass with a smile. If he could not cope, his confidence would ebb away, and he would fail himself – and be glad that he would not be required to bear the responsibility for a submarine and the people in it. Only once did I have to tell an individual that he was not suitable when he thought otherwise.”
The seagoing part of the course took place in the crowded waters of the Clyde, and to the north and west of Ireland. On his last course were two Germans – the first, he thought, to command submarines since the Second World War. “I learnt to dislike them,” he said. There were two Israelis, who were “splendid”, as he recorded in his guileless memoir, A Cold War Sailor, self-published earlier this year.
Martin La Touche Wemyss, a scion of the Earls of Fife, was born on December 5 1927 in Cambridge, where his mother’s family lived, while his father was serving on the China station. In wartime, his father, Commander David “Dicky” Wemyss DSO, DSC (the latter of which he was awarded three times), was a submariner turned U-boat hunter who in wartime had commanded the 2nd Escort Group after the death of Captain “Johnny” Walker. Martin’s mother was Edith Mary Digges La Touche.
![Wemyss at the dive control of XE12 in 1951](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/obituaries/2022/10/31/TELEMMGLPICT000313209773_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqrxWFGesxrpZeq46IzjjjVqlClAt6TFu9xTxPi7k10pM.jpeg?imwidth=350)
After the family home was bombed during the Plymouth Blitz, young Wemyss joined Westbury House prep wearing his McDuff tartan kilt, the only clothes which had not been destroyed.
His education continued at Shrewsbury, where the headmaster prepared him to read Classics at Cambridge, but a visit to his father’s ship, Wild Goose, inspired him to follow his brother Gavin into the Navy. He joined the training cruiser Frobisher as a special entry cadet in 1945, and as a midshipman his training continued in the cruiser Nigeria, “For 16 life-affirming months ... we did not learn a lot about the Navy, but we grew up and learnt a lot about life.”
A highlight of his midshipman’s time was an invitation to Princess Elizabeth’s 21st-birthday party in Government House, Cape Town, with his term-mate Alan Hensher. Wearing the best uniforms which the gunroom of Nigeria could put together, the boys arrived late at the wrong entrance and bumped into an amused King George VI, who told his equerry: “Put them down for a dance with the girls.”
![On Sentinel in Malta alongside Tudor](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/obituaries/2022/10/31/TELEMMGLPICT000313209770_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqTSNc2HkL-gGla3QrgLWAQgb643Od-MrFK7Cuixbkngg.jpeg?imwidth=350)
In 1949 Wemyss joined the trade and served in the submarines Alaric and Totem before joining the X-craft unit under Lt Cdr Donald Cameron, VC. Wemyss’s two years in miniature submarines was a turning point in his professional and personal life: there was no one to turn to for advice in times of stress or crisis and his self-confidence grew apace.
His talent was also recognised by authority, and at a relatively young age he stood by Scorcher, building at Vickers in Barrow, and in 1953-54 he was a staff officer on the Attack Teacher training device, which simulated tactics at sea, then at Port Bannatyne, where he helped to analyse submarine attacks and exercises.
His next boat was Tabard, based at Londonderry, before he passed his own “perisher” in 1956, with Lt Cdr “Rud” Cairns as his teacher. Then, still a lieutenant, he was appointed to command Sentinel, based in Malta.
He recalled: “From the first day, Sentinel and I seemed to be friends, I had a team of officers and ship’s company to dream for ... I was so young and so junior, but so well-trained, that we did things without knowing that we were not meant to do them, and were forgiven.”
![HMS Norfolk off Toulon during trials of the Exocet missile system in the 1970s](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/obituaries/2022/10/31/TELEMMGLPICT000313209776_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Wemyss’s next appointment was at the submarine desk in Naval Intelligence (1958-60), ideal preparation for his command of Alliance, a submarine specially fitted for covert surveillance of the Soviet navy on exercise in the Arctic.
By the early 1960s Wemyss was one of Britain’s most experienced submariners, but paradoxically his early promotion to commander and his two years as “teacher” stopped him from becoming a pioneer nuclear submariner. Instead, his career took another turn and – in part for his outstanding leadership – he was groomed to reach the top ranks of the Navy.
In 1963-65 he was a desk officer in the directorate of naval plans, which he found stressful but immensely interesting and educational, before commanding the frigate Cleopatra. He was soon promoted to captain and returned to the MoD as naval assistant to the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Michael le Fanu.
In 1970 he returned to the world of submarines as captain of the 3rd Submarine Squadron based at Faslane, overseeing the introduction into service of the first nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines and the development of new weapons and tactics. Next, he commanded the guided-missile destroyer Norfolk on the trials of the Exocet missile system off Toulon, and in 1974-76 he was back at the MoD as director of naval warfare, continuing his pursuit of modern systems and tactics.
![Promotion to Rear Admiral](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/obituaries/2022/10/31/TELEMMGLPICT000313209771_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Promoted early, again, to rear admiral, Wemyss thought his time as Flag Officer Second Flotilla (1977-78) on deployments to the Far East and in the North Atlantic was “pure joy”. However, his appointment as Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Operations) (1979-81) was a sideways move which did not challenge him intellectually. He became bored, and not yet 55, he retired early.
On retirement he was clerk to the Worshipful Company of Brewers for 10 years but, by his own admission, left under a cloud in 1991.
The red-haired Wemyss, who was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1981, was quick-tempered, had a fierce intelligence, and was a voracious reader, who with his brother enjoyed the epithet “Whisky”. In old age he preferred his own company and grew his vegetables in straight lines.
His marriage to Ann Hall at the Savoy Chapel in 1952 was reported in Tatler and, after their divorce, he married Libby Alexander in 1973. She survives him with a son and daughter of the first marriage and a son and daughter of the second.
Rear Admiral Martin Wemyss, born December 5 1927, died September 10 2022