On October 4 1941 Waller was navigating officer of the trawler Lady Shirley, converted for anti-submarine duties and under the command of the Australian Lt-Cdr Arthur Callaway. When a submarine conning tower was seen on the horizon Callaway raced his ship to the spot and gained asdic sonar contact. Waller’s action station was at the depth charge throwers aft and, after one pattern of bombs was dropped, U-111 broke the surface.
As Lady Shirley turned to ram, a fierce gun battle broke out, the trawler taking on the German craft’s heavier, modern weapons with her antique 12-pounder. There were casualties on both sides, among them Lady Shirley’s gunlayer, but his position was quickly taken over by Sub-Lieutenant Fred French, and the gunfire never faltered. Lady Shirley’s uninterrupted barrage killed two of U-111’s forward gun crew and sent the remaining three men scurrying for shelter. Direct hits then killed the captain and his officers in the conning tower.
Just 19 minutes after Lady Shirley had first obtained a sonar echo, U-111 sank. To his consternation, Waller soon realised that he and his 28 fellow officers and men would be largely outnumbered by the remnants of the German crew, whom they proceeded to rescue from the water. In the end 45 prisoners were taken.
After burying her dead at sea, Lady Shirley returned to base at Gibraltar to land her prisoners and carry out repairs; Waller was sent to hospital for treatment to his ear drums, which had burst in the firefight. He was in hospital when Lady Shirley was sunk by another U-boat on her next patrol on December 11 – lost with all hands.
Allan Lansley Waller was born in Croydon on November 19 1920, but his parents and family were from Southwold in Suffolk, and he spent his holidays with the longshore fishermen there. A stocky, fair-haired man, Waller regarded himself as Suffolk-bred if not actually Suffolk-born.
He started work with the Croydon Gas Company and joined the RNVR as a signalman in 1938. During the war his talent was recognised and he was commissioned, but he developed a name for bad luck. Soon his reputation was such that even his best friends refused to serve with him and he became known as the “Jonah of Parkeston Quay” (a reference to his home base).
His first ship, the anti-submarine trawler Amethyst, struck a mine in the Thames estuary on November 24 1940 and sank in 10 minutes; when the survivors landed at Southend they were briefly arrested under suspicion of being survivors from a sunken German craft.
Then, while Waller was briefly in the Flower-class corvette Primula, she was severely damaged following a collision during convoy duties. In January 1941 Waller was mentioned in despatches “for courage and skill” during a battle between the trawler Tourmaline and enemy E-boats, but he was wounded two weeks later when she was bombed and sunk by German aircraft off North Foreland, Kent.
The sinking of Lady Shirley did not mark the end of this curse. On June 16 1944 he was in the anti-submarine whaler Southern Pride when she was grounded off Freetown, Sierra Leone. Once again the craft was lost, but Waller survived.
He completed his active service in 1946, having served in four vessels that sank, and one that was crippled.
Post-war Waller continued in the RNVR and supplementary reserve and, on amalgamation, in the Royal Naval Reserve. Retiring at 60, he continued in the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service, finally retiring at 65. He also served as an auxiliary coastguard for 16 years at Lowestoft and Southwold. He was awarded the Volunteer Reserve Decoration.
In 1997 he published his memoirs, Dawn Will Always Break.
Lt-Cdr Allan Waller, born November 19 2012, died August 2 2012
