03/01/2025
Remembering Lieutenant Commander David Wanklyn VC DSO**
The story of David Wanklyn, one of the most successful Allied submariners of the Second World War, is well told in Jim Allaway’s 1990 biography 'The Hero of the Upholder.' As Allaway points out, David was born India to English and Irish parents, yet spent many of his formative years in Galloway and liked to think of himself as a Scot. In April 2020, Submariners Association Scottish Branch member Rae Taylor was in contact with Catherine Wade-Ashley, goddaughter of David Wanklyn’s son Ian. Catherine was keen to investigate the family’s connections in Scotland and, in particular, the Perthshire village of Meigle. Her visit was delayed by Covid, but Catherine was able to travel to Scotland from her home in Melbourne, Victoria, in July 2024.
David Wanklyn was seven years old when, at the end of 1917, his cousin Sub Lieutenant Edward ‘Alec’ Anderson paid the Wanklyn family a visit. Alec was the son of David’s mother Marjorie’s sister Norah and her husband Tom Anderson who lived at Milton House (now, in 2025, the Milton Inn) in the Angus village of Monifieth.
Perhaps because his ship had just sunk the enemy submarine U-87, Sub Lieutenant Anderson made a big impression on David who resolved that he too would join the Royal Navy. Alec Anderson sadly committed su***de in 1922, but David, by then living near Portpatrick in Galloway, duly entered Dartmouth in 1925.
David Wanklyn found his niche in the Submarine Service and it was while serving as First Lieutenant in HMS Shark at Malta in 1937 that he met Elspeth ‘Betty’ Kinloch at a picnic and was, as she later recalled, ‘immediately bowled over.’ Coincidentally, Betty was born at Ashley Grove, Monifieth Road, Broughty Ferry, now part of Dundee and less than two miles from the Anderson family home at Milton House.
David Wanklyn and Betty Kinloch were married at Holy Trinity Church in Sliema, Malta, on 5 May 1938. With David away at sea, the newly-weds spent their limited time together at the Kinloch family home, Ellangowan in the village of Meigle. And, while on leave, David became a familiar figure in the village, fishing on local rivers and even joining the curling club. Their son Ian was born on 31 August 1939, four days before the outbreak of war.
In August 1940 Lieutenant Wanklyn was given command of the new submarine HMS Upholder and, in twenty-five war patrols from the 10th Flotilla base in Malta, sank one destroyer, two submarines and nine supply ships; in all some 93,000 tons of enemy shipping. This made Upholder, in just sixteen months, one of the most successful Allied submarines of the Second World War and earned her commanding officer a Victoria Cross and a Distinguished Service Order.
Upholder sailed from Malta on her final war patrol on 6 April 1942. The submarine landed two agents on the coast of Tunisia on 10 April, made a rendezvous with another submarine in the early hours of of the following morning, then vanished. The cause of Upholder’s loss with all hands is debated to this day, but recent research suggests that she probably struck a mine while on her way to attack an enemy convoy.
The sad news was broken to Betty Wanklyn at Ellangowan by the Padre from HMS Ambrose, the submarine base in nearby Dundee. Two bars to David's DSO were awarded posthumously and Betty and three-year-old Ian, who would join the Royal Navy in 1958, accepted his Victoria Cross from the King in March 1943.
In July 2024, Rae Taylor was able to show Catherine Wade-Ashley the Kinloch family mausoleum west of Meigle where Betty Wanklyn was interred following her death in May 2000. They visited Meigle's Second World War Memorial where Lieutenant Commander Wanklyn’s name appears at the top of the list of casualties and Ellangowan on Meigle’s Dundee Road where they were able to compare family photographs with the building today. Rae was also able to show Catherine a copy of the service sheet from the service in Meigle Parish Church organised by the then North East Scotland Branch of the Submariners’ Association to mark the 75th anniversary of the loss of HMS Upholder.
