Date of birth:

February 29th, 1910 (Dominica, British West Indies, Great Britain)

Date of death:

April 19th, 2007

Nationality:

British

John Henry Eaden was born February 23 1910 on Dominica, British West Indies, where his father owned lime plantations; his mother was the daughter of a doctor. At eight John was sent to prep school in England, moving on to the Royal Naval College Dartmouth.
He was sent to sea in 1927 in the battleship Royal Sovereign.
Eaden served in the battleship Royal Oak and the destroyer Canterbury before joining the trade in 1931. In 1938 he passed the "perisher", the exacting course for submarine commanders.
Eaden was commanding the submarine Spearfish when on September 3 1939, within minutes of receiving the signal for the commencement of hostilities against Germany, torpedoes were fired at him. A game of cat and mouse was then played out beneath the waves for the next six hours, in the course of which Eaden attempted to ram his opponent; but he lost contact.
Spearfish remained on patrol for a further three, uneventful weeks until on September 24, in the shallow water of the Heligoland Bight, it was repeatedly depth-charged. Eaden took his boat to the seabed, stopped all machinery and ordered everyone to lie still. The hydrophones of the searching enemy could be heard in the water above, and the scraping of grappling lines being drawn over the hull.
Two hours later the attacks began again; up to 60 depth charges proceeded to explode around Spearfish, and a final explosion caused huge damage.
At nightfall he investigated the damage. The submarine's periscope had been blown away, the wireless was smashed, the engines disabled and seawater threatened to reach the batteries and start a release of chlorine gas. Knowing that if he surfaced he would be unable to dive again, Eaden nevertheless decided to do so, hoping that darkness would cover the boat's movements.
Eaden crept north on the submarine's one remaining electrical motor. At dawn on the second day he was met by units of the Home Fleet who escorted him to Rosyth.
Eaden's escape was reported in The Daily Telegraph on October 6.
After leaving Spearfish, Eaden commanded the destroyer Venetia, the submarine Utmost, the destroyer Walpole.
After a brief spell training new officers in Sussex at HMS King Alfred, Eaden's next command was the destroyer Inconstant, from May 1943 to June 1944.
On 12 July 1943, while escorting a troop convoy off the coast of Algiers, Eaden made sonar contacts with a U-boat and forced U-409 with depth charges to the surface. Eaden rescued more than 30 of its crew.
Fifty-three years later, U-409's captain, Hans-Ferdinand Massmann, wrote to Eaden to apologise for not having thanked him for the "chivalrous action you took to save the surviving people of my crew.
In January 1944 Eaden was still in command of Inconstant, now escorting convoys to Murmansk in weather which he described as the worst he had ever seen. He ended the war in command of the frigate Loch Achray.
After leaving the Navy in 1955 Eaden spent 15 years working first as personnel officer and then as safety officer for ICI, Cheshire. Having taken to spending his holidays in the Lake District, in 1969 Eaden settled there in a cottage looking out over the fells and the sea, and pursued his interests in gardening and golf. He became secretary of his local PCC, a consultant for Age Concern and a very active member of Whitehaven Ramblers.
He loved mountain-walking and once, on a holiday to Austria, climbed to a hut at 8,000 ft.

Promotions:
January 1st, 1931: Sub-Lieutenant
October 1st, 1932: Lieutenant
October 1st, 1940: Lieutenant-Commander
June 30th, 1945: Commander

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• - Second Supplement to The London Gazette of 22nd December 1939, Issue 34759, dated 23rd December 1939
  - Supplement to The London Gazette Issue 35545 published on the 1 May 1942
  - Supplement to The London Gazette Issue 36295 published on the 17 December 1943
  - Fourth Supplement to The London Gazette Issue 36505 published on the 5 May 1944
  - uboat.net
  - The Telegraph-Obituaries