WALTER BLOUNT was awarded his DSC for his gallantry and initiative while in command of the high-speed motor torpedo boats of Coastal Forces during operations in the Channel, and two Bars for attacks on heavily armed German convoys and naval forces in the Adriatic.

Walter Edward Alpin Blount was born in 1917, the son of Sir Edward Robert Blount, 12th Baronet, the title having been created in 1642. For some obscure reason connected with the family dog — which was also called Walter and was the one that came when called — Blount was always known as Jasper by his family.

While reading law at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, he was persuaded in 1937 by an uncle to join the London division of the Royal Naval Supplementary Volunteer Reserve (the “yachtsman’s reserve”). He took his MA in 1939 and was promptly called up for naval service at the outbreak of war. His first appointment was to a drifter defending the boom at Scapa Flow in Orkney, a “miserable existence” which after a year he was able to escape by pulling a string connected to the Naval Secretary.

Because he had done an Asdic course, he found himself in command of a motor anti-submarine boat instead of the more exciting and active motor torpedo and gunboats. Based at Dover on air-sea rescue duties, he was responsible for the recovery of no less than 27 shot-down aircrew from the Channel — recounting that on being lifted on board, each was dried off and given the key to the gin cupboard as the boat hammered back home, the fee being that each should, for the record, strip off his aviator’s “wings” and pin them to the cupboard door. Blount’s first DSC was awarded in late 1943 for these rescues — pilots being more valuable than aircraft — and upon the recommendation of a senior RAF officer after a rescue dangerously close to the French coast.

Transferred to the Mediterranean, Blount was second-in-command of the senior officer’s boat in a motor torpedo boat (MTB) squadron where he saw action in co-operation with American coastal forces against heavily armed convoys around Corsica. His group soon moved to the Adriatic where, based on Vis — the only Dalmatian coast island still in Allied hands — they fought against German convoys ferrying troops and supplies for operations against Tito’s partisans in Yugoslavia. These convoys were vital to the Germans, as attacks by partisans and the rugged terrain of the Yugoslav littoral made travel by land extremely hazardous.

Now in command of MTB634, Blount met Tito on Vis but, not recognising him, thought him “a smelly old brigand”. At this time the Germans were retreating northwards, and Blount earned his second DSC in October 1944 for his part in a night action against two separate convoys. Because one of his engines had broken down, Blount was unable to steer as well as he would have liked, and so found himself in a gun action right up against a ship carrying a cargo of mines which fortunately burnt “like a gigantic bonfire” rather than exploding. The German “F-lighter” cargo vessels in the other convoy were habitually fitted with the formidable 88mm gun and excellent night vision binoculars; nevertheless four of these and four other craft were sunk or beached and an E-boat — the German Navy’s (more powerful) equivalent of the Royal Navy’s MTB — was also sunk (although German records do not confirm this). This five-hour action has been described as one of the finest Coastal Forces’ actions of the war. British casualties were one man killed and three wounded.

Blount was awarded a second Bar to his DSC after another night action, off the Istrian coast, in February 1945. Now fitted with an excellent American radar and in command of three MTBs, he surprised a convoy of three merchant ships, again armed with 88mm guns, eventually sinking all three by gunfire or torpedo.

A culminating event in the Adriatic was the surrender of some forty vessels at the mouth of the River Tagliamento between Venice and Trieste. Blount and his senior officer, Lieutenant-Commander Tim Bligh, were ordered to proceed in very rough weather from Ancona to the Tagliamento, a distance too far to be able to return without refuelling. Although air cover by Spitfires had materialised, none of the promised white flags were to be seen, there was a battle going on ashore and some ships had fired at the Spitfires. Alongside what seemed to be the senior enemy vessel of a collection of E-boats, tugs, F-lighters and merchantmen, Bligh, Blount and an interpreter climbed aboard. “What are you here for?” they were asked. “Your surrender.” “What — just to you three?” Luckily, Blount had encountered an indecisive German admiral and two ex-royalist Yugoslav generals only too keen to avoid being taken by Tito’s partisans. A tense situation was gradually resolved, several E-boats scuttled or set on fire and the remainder escorted to Ancona.

Blount left the Navy in 1948 and resumed his career as a solicitor, in the Isle of Wight. He worked in Accra in the Gold Coast (Ghana) from 1951 to 1953, returning to marry Eileen Carrit in 1954. He worked for Underwood & Co of Welbeck Street in London, becoming a senior partner, until succeeding to the baronetcy as 12th baronet in 1978 and taking up farming at Tilkhurst, East Grinstead, Sussex.

Owning a Bembridge Redwing, he was an active member of three Isle of Wight yacht clubs and an expert dinghy and keelboat helmsman.

He is survived by his wife and daughter.

Sir Walter Blount, DSC and two Bars, Coastal Forces veteran, was born on October 31, 1917. He died on December 18 aged 87.