Obituary: Bill Henley DSC, naval aviator and commercial pilot

BILL Henley was a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm pilot who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross after sinking a German submarine in the Second World War.

Henley, who has died aged 88, was one of the last surviving combat pilots to have gone into action in a Fairey Swordfish biplane, nicknamed Stringbag for its rickety appearance.

He won a Bar to his DSC for his part in the Suez operation and went on to forge a successful career in Scottish civil aviation, becoming senior pilot with Loganair.

On 13 December, 1944, Henley had been escorting Russian convoys in Arctic waters when he carried out a night attack on U-365, which had already sunk four ships and badly damaged a fifth. The submarine, of the 13th U-boat Flotilla and commanded by Kapitanleutnant Diether Todenhagen, had been taking part in clandestine operations in the North Sea and Arctic Ocean before relocating to the frozen waters around Novaya Zemlya.

This zone offered rich pickings. The U-boat, of wolf-pack Stier, had already sunk a Soviet freighter along with the two minesweepers protecting her, sent another merchant ship to the bottom and seriously damaged the British destroyer, HMS Cassandra, just two days earlier. But having given away his position in the final attack, Todenhagen and his crew were now being hunted.

Henley, then 21, and his observer Donald Chapman, took off in a Mark 2 Swordfish from the escort carrier HMS Campania, three days out of Murmansk. Of practical but near-obsolete design, the Swordfish was slow in the air. However, with varied armaments and the right conditions it proved its mettle and by 1944 had scored major successes against enemy shipping.

A contact was picked up east of Jan Mayen but Henley, who was patrolling with another Swordfish, suffered a setback when his radar broke down. Flares and depth charges were released without success and both aircraft made to return to the carrier. But as they did so, the other Swordfish's radar detected a potential target and flares were dropped to reveal a vulnerable U-365 running on the surface.

Henley dropped all of his three depth charges, which straddled the vessel with one bouncing off the hull, before exploding. Flares revealed the upturned hull of the sinking U-boat surrounded by oil and debris. The encounter was logged by intelligence officers as a "probable" kill, but German documents seized after the end of the war confirmed U-365 had been destroyed with the loss of all 50 hands.

Still only a Temporary Acting Sub-Lieutenant, Henley was in March 1945 awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his "gallant service, endurance and devotion to duty while operating from or serving in HM ships Campania, Nairana and Bamborough Castle in Arctic seas while escorting convoys to and from north Russia".

Henley, of Pollockshields, Glasgow, recalled receiving his DSC at a medal parade while serving in Australia. The event was dominated by army and air force personnel and their senior officers. Tasked with making an individual naval presentation to Henley on behalf of the King, an Admiral from the Royal Australian Navy indicated the ceremonial regalia he had been obliged to wear in the heat and barked: "There's only one from the Navy here and he's a bloody Pom."

Maurice William Henley was born in London on 25 March, 1923, the son of a civil servant, and was educated at the Roan School for Boys in Greenwich before joining the National Provincial Bank. With London by now targeted by the Luftwaffe, he served as an air raid warden in Lewisham before joining the Royal Navy as a rating; his enlistment suffered a minor hold-up when the recruiting station was bombed. He volunteered and was selected for aircrew and was awarded his Royal Navy wings after training in Canada.

He served in the Western Approaches and on the Russian convoys on escort vessels and carriers. The warships would assemble at the Tail of the Bank in the upper Firth of Clyde while their Merchant Navy charges gathered in Loch Ewe, before emerging in convoy to face the challenges of the Arctic weather and the grim toll of the waiting German submarines and aircraft. Henley, wearing his medals and Arctic white beret, would many years later return to the hills above the loch for reunions of the Russian Convoy Club.

After the war, Henley stayed in the Navy and was seconded to the Royal Australian Air Force in Melbourne before an exchange posting to the US Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, North Carolina. He served with 809 Naval Air Squadron at Culdrose, Cornwall, where he flew Sea Hornets and specialised in night operations, latterly commanding the squadron. Later in the 1950s he was appointed commanding officer of 893 Naval Air Squadron at Yeovilton, Somerset, which was equipped with Sea Venoms.

When the Suez crisis erupted in 1956, Henley was on honeymoon on Spain. Recalled to his squadron, he hired a car at vast expense and rushed back to Gibraltar to find his ship had sailed but an aircraft had been left behind for him. He took off from the Rock and soon caught up with the carrier HMS Eagle, which was steaming towards Egypt. He was reunited with his bride, who had sailed separately in a Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship, in Malta on boxing day. A Bar to his DSC soon followed for his duties in the ill-fated Suez operation.

A posting to the carrier HMS Ark Royal followed before work with a beach survey team took him around Aden and parts of Africa. These duties fostered a deep interest in geography. He later joined the School of Land/Air Warfare at Old Sarum, Wiltshire, before leaving the service in 1968 as a Lieutenant-Commander.

In response to a magazine advert, Henley joined Loganair and became chief pilot and instructor, flying out of Glasgow to and from the Highlands and Islands including Barra, where he landed at the only beach airport in the world used for scheduled airline services. A woman in a hut would wave a flag when it was safe to land. He also piloted fixed-wing air ambulances, with a baby from Benbecula being born on board, and flew the newspapers into Stornoway, leading to his becoming, as he put it, the "best-paid paperboy in the business".

His fascination with geography was rekindled by long hours of standby duty and he went on to earn a degree in the subject. He later became a member of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and was chairman of its Glasgow branch.

He supported and raised funds for King George's Fund for Sailors, now known as Seafarers UK, and also gave speeches and talks to boost funds for the Glenlee tall ship moored in the Clyde. His other interests included orchestral music, particularly the Scottish and Glasgow chamber orchestras, railways, river cruising and international travel featuring five visits to China.

Henley is survived by his wife Hazel, daughter Rosemary, sons Richard and Rupert, and grandchildren Imogen and Stephen.