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Lieutenant Commander John Manners, who has died aged 105, was the last destroyer commander of the Second World War, who sank a U-boat in the closing weeks of the war; he was also believed to be the longest-lived first-class cricketer and the oldest member of the MCC.

John Manners took command of the elderly destroyer Viceroy in December 1943 at Jarrow, where she was being refitted, and he commanded her until mid-1945. Viceroy’s anti-aircraft armament had been enhanced, but she retained her Asdic sonar system and some anti-submarine depth-charge racks and throwers, and her top speed of 36 knots.

Part of the Rosyth Escort Force under the command of Captain John Ruck-Keene, Viceroy was employed as an anti-aircraft and anti-E-boat escort to convoys in the North Sea carrying vital supplies to London, each round trip from Methil, Fife and other east coast ports taking up to 10 days. The dangers were the weather, and the E-boats, which often hid in the haag, or North Sea fog, or at night secured to buoys marking the mine-swept channels.

On the evening of 11 April Viceroy was at cruising stations, with only part of her armament manned, and zigzagging ahead of Convoy FS84, seven ships in two columns off the Farne Islands. It was wet and uncomfortable in the biting cold east wind, and Manners had just stepped on to the bridge from his sea cabin just below the bridge when the tanker Athelduke was rent by two explosions.

Manners, realising the water was too deep for mines, turned to port, increased speed to 18 knots, and three minutes later, despite a number of wrecks in the area, Viceroy’s Asdic operator heard the propellers of a U-boat and obtained a contact at 2,200 yards.

At 19:42, while the ship’s company were still running to their action stations, Manners made an urgent attack with depth-charges set to “shallow”. As the seas erupted, the force of the explosions made Viceroy shudder, lifted her a foot or two in the water, and plunged her into darkness as all electric switches were thrown off.

Power was quickly restored, and 10 minutes later Manners made a second attack on a moving target, after which he saw oil brought to the surface. At 20:17, after listening quietly, Manners and his head Asdic operator reckoned that a U-boat was bottomed in 250 ft of water. Running over the stationary contact, Viceroy dropped depth-charges set to “deep”, causing an unusually prolonged explosion. More oil rose to the surface.

At 21:13, creeping slowly forward, Manners made a fourth attack, dropped a danbuoy (a marker buoy), and hurried away to catch up with the convoy. He was confident that he had sunk a U-boat. The destruction of U-1274 by the Viceroy The destruction of U-1274 by the Viceroy

Two weeks later, when no confirmation of his “kill” had come, Manners spoke to Ruck-Keene who, bored with life ashore, decided: “Bugger the office, let’s go and have a look.”

Once over the site Manners dropped further depth-charges, and wreckage including a grey cylinder rose to the surface. The cylinder contained 12 bottles of brandy – one of which was sent in a handsome wooden casket made by Viceroy’s “chippy” to Winston Churchill. He wrote back: “Please convey my thanks … and my congratulations on the successful attack.”

Manners was Mentioned in Despatches and awarded the DSC for gallantry, determination and skill: postwar analysis showed that he had indeed sunk U-1274. On the same page of the London Gazette his brother, Errol Manners, was also awarded the DSC, for outstanding, courage, tenacity and devotion to duty when his ship Bedouin was sunk defending a convoy to Malta.

Manners’s father, called from retirement to be a convoy commodore, led 52 convoys, and was knighted and Mentioned in Despatches, while another son and a daughter were officers in the Navy.

John Errol Manners, descended from the 2nd Duke of Rutland, was born in Exeter on September 25 1914: his father, Admiral Sir Errol Manners, was a naval officer and a distinguished theologian. Aged 13, young Manners followed his father into the Navy.

As a cadet he visited the West Indies, and as a lieutenant he served in the Royal Yacht, in motor-torpedo boats, and in the cruiser Birmingham.

In parallel he developed his cricketing career. He had taken three wickets in a schools’ match at Lord’s in 1930, when he was 15 and still at the naval college in Dartmouth.

Six years later he was serving on the Royal Yacht – but, “since the King didn’t want to go to Cowes that year, we had nothing to do.” So he was allowed to go off and play for Hampshire against Gloucestershire at the nearby United Services ground in Portsmouth. Manners, left, welcomes Crown Prince Olav of Norway on board the Viceroy; last year he received the Norwegian Medal of Honour Manners, left, welcomes Crown Prince Olav of Norway on board the Viceroy; last year he received the Norwegian Medal of Honour

He scored 81 before becoming one of seven victims for the off-spinner Reg Sinfield after being asked to push the score along on the second day. “I cracked a ball hard into my foot, and it trickled slowly back on to the stumps,” he recalled.

He had a few more matches that season – against Surrey, Yorkshire and the Indian tourists – but service commitments intervened, and he did not appear again for more than 10 years. “I was saving up lots of leave to have a summer of cricket in 1940,” he said, “but then war was declared.” By then Manners was on the China Station; when returning to Southampton in the troop ship Strathallan he was appointed to the destroyer Eglinton, building on the Tyne.

There he met Mary Downes, an actress playing in rep, and they were married in October 1940: on their wedding night they escaped injury when their hotel was bombed. Six months later, while Eglinton was at Harwich, a bomb destroyed the bedroom of their rented house while they were in the bathroom: four other occupants were killed.

Manners was first lieutenant of Eglinton until February 1942; he briefly commanded Fame, and then Eskimo from May 1943. Until Eskimo was bombed and severely damaged during Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, Manners took part in several major operations: Operation Pedestal, the relief of Malta, when he was Mentioned in Despatches; in Convoy PQ18, the restart of the Arctic convoys to Russia; and in Allied landings in North Africa as well as Sicily.

In May 1945 Manners took part in the liberation of Norway, received the German surrender at Trondheim and welcomed Crown Prince Olav on board Viceroy. Last year he received the Norwegian Medal of Honour.

Manners was loaned to the Royal Australian Navy (his mother was Australian), spent some time cricketing, and working on a wool station near Melbourne. He returned to Britain to be appointed to two sinecures: first, commanding officer of the battleship King George V, which was awaiting disposal, then, naval liaison officer at Sandhurst, which enabled him to resume first-class cricket for Combined Services and for Hampshire.

In his second match back for Hants, in 1947, Manners made 121 against Kent, showing off what Wisden called “perfect stroke play, drives, cuts and hooks”, but as a serving officer – a lieutenant commander now – his availability was limited. That innings at Canterbury remained his only county century, although he did make two more for Combined Services, including 123 against the touring New Zealanders in 1949. He also played once for MCC.

In 1958 Manners retired from the Navy to become bursar at Dauntsey’s School in Wiltshire. In 1964 he was briefly suspended after pupils organised a strike in protest at the food. “They left their meat pie and rice pudding lunch uneaten,” intoned the Daily Express. He was reinstated after a week, helped by a letter of support signed by all but one of from the teaching staff.

He was also a photographer who contributed to Country Life and produced four books on country crafts. His collection of rural photographs and research files are held at the Museum of English Rural Life at the University of Reading.

Aged 103 he took part in a television show, 100 Year Old Driving School, though soon after he restricted himself to driving his mobility scooter to the local shop.

His wife predeceased him in 1995. They had two daughters, one of whom was christened in the ship’s bell of the Eglinton, and a son.