At the outbreak of the Second World War Derek Wright — always known as Jake — gave up his burgeoning career in the tea business with Brooke Bond and, being a keen yachtsman, swiftly became part of the huge expansion of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve which, at least initially, favoured those volunteers having amateur sea experience. Before the war that venerable light-blue quarto volume known as the The Navy List recorded, at about 130 to the page, all RNVR officers in five pages; by June 1944 this had swollen to more than 400 pages.

Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay, commanding the Dunkirk evacuation, called for volunteers from among a small group of trainee officers at HMS King Alfred to man motorised lifeboats and go to the Dunkirk beaches to collect stragglers, the evacuation proper having been completed. Wright took part in this hazardous operation.

Fetching off a number of soldiers from Dunkirk pier, he was glad of a tow home from a tugboat, having been desultorily shelled in both directions. “We were awarded a ‘pass’ in King Alfred’s final examination for officer, having been absent,” he noted drily.

He then volunteered for Coastal Forces and for the next four years took part in the bitter fighting in the Channel and North Sea between German convoys with their escorts and the Royal Navy’s motor torpedo boats (MTBs) and gunboats (MGBs, MLs). Fought mainly at night, these battles involved groping for enemy convoys in often poor visibility, keeping as quiet as possible until contact was made, then with all engines at full power, the dark lit up by explosions and multicoloured tracer shells, these lightly built craft would close at high speed to the short ranges necessary for a successful torpedo attack.

Times Archive, 1943: Enemy convoy hit

Light coastal forces under the command of Lieutenant D. G. H. Wright, DSC, RNVR, intercepted a small escorted enemy convy off the Dutch coast in the early

• July, 1944: Naval patrols in action

• British MTBs in action

In December 1940, creeping in mist and darkness up the Scheldt river, Wright as second-in-command and navigator of the leader of three MTBs, was asked: “Where are we, pilot?”

“In about 20 minutes you’ll be in the cocktail bar of the Grand Hotel, Flushing.” At that point a large merchant ship at anchor loomed out of the mist and was dispatched with torpedoes, a nearby flak trawler contributing to a noisy retreat. Thus night-fighting began to develop in the narrow seas; the Germans did not thereafter leave merchant ships at anchor off harbours.

Wright was awarded his first DSC for his part while commanding MTB32 in a spirited action against enemy supply ships and E-boats on the night of July 29, 1942.

After he had risen to command a unit of three MTBs, Wright’s first success of many occurred in March 1943 with a well-planned attack on a heavily escorted convoy of three merchant ships, Wright stalking his prey for an hour and a half and getting down-moon before the final assault in a dazzle of starshell and tracer. Further actions in 1943 earned him a bar to his DSC in the New Year Honours.

He became known as one of a handful of MTB commanders who “knew precisely what they were about”, having commanded flotillas of two types of MTB as well as Fairmile “D” gunboats, and contributed to important material and tactical innovations.

His attacks were brought to a pitch of perfection, as illustrated by an incident to the north of Walcheren during the invasion of Normandy where Wright’s team of five Fairmile boats stalked four enemy warships and, apparently still unseen, launched torpedoes that sank them all. His third DSC was awarded for outstanding leadership and skill in successful actions during July 1944. Promoted to temporary lieutenant-commander, he was mentioned in dispatches for a further action in the North Sea in August.

The Admiralty believed that the German Navy might finally hole up in Norwegian fjords, so Wright was commissioned to oversee the preparation and “Arcticisation” of a flotilla of MTBs, a measure that turned out not to be needed.

He was present at the surrender ceremony, where senior German officers commanding their surviving E-boat forces came over to Felixstowe to brief the local C-in-C about the position of German minefields, an event conducted with dignity between brave men. Over five years, manned almost exclusively by RNVRs, Light Coastal Forces had fought 464 battles in home waters, sinking 269 enemy vessels for the loss of 76 of their own.

Having been promoted to commander at the end of the war, Jake Wright rejoined Brooke Bond in 1946 and was posted to Calcutta, transferring to Brooke Bond Ceylon after six months. At that time Ceylon produced only about 1 per cent of the world’s tea. He became a director and senior tea buyer, working in Ceylon for 15 years and building up the business to the extent that Brooke Bond became Ceylon’s top tea exporter. When he left in 1961, Ceylon was producing 25 per cent of the world output.

In 1963 Wright was offered a place on the board and controlled the company’s global tea-buying and planting activities. He was active in East Africa and promoted innovations such as instant tea some 40 years before its commercial viability.

He represented Brooke Bond Liebig and the Tea Trade Committee on many occasions, notably the FAO consultative committee, the International Standards Organisation, the British Standards Institute and others. By 1971 he was president of the Tea Buyers’ Association and chairman of the Tea Trade Committee.

He was one of the founder members of the Tea Trade Council and its president in its early years where he led generic trade marketing and promotion, which benefited producers and distributors while educating tea drinkers better to appreciate tea varieties.

His first wife, Mary, died in 1990 and he is survived by his second wife, Jacquemine, and the son and daughter of his first marriage.

Commander Derek Wright, DSC and two Bars, wartime Coastal Forces skipper and businessman, was born on September 29, 1915. He died on May 10, 2008, aged 92