John Walters was the most senior uniformed legal officer in the Royal Navy at a key period of change and was also the man who hatched the plan to requisition the Cunard liner QE2 in the Falklands conflict as part of STUFT (Ships Taken Up From Trade).

In 1981, as Assistant Chief of Defence Staff (Personnel and Logistics), he played a key role in planning for the Falklands campaign and was charged with the responsibility of organising the transport of everything from flour to helicopters 8,000 miles to the South Atlantic.

Having looked at the options, he argued strongly to the Defence Secretary, John Nott, that the large passenger liner QE2 was essential to the mission, which also involved requisitioning many other non-naval vessels.

There were understandable fears that the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, might veto the plan — a ship so named would be a prime target for Argentinian forces — and Nott asked him to deliver it to her in person. In fact she displayed none of the feared resistance, saying simply “if that’s what it takes”, and the ship subsequently carried 3,000 troops to South Georgia, from where the liner Canberra took them to the warzone.

John William Townshend Walters was educated at John Fisher School, Purley, where he overcame the early disability of being born with a dislocated hip — his early childhood was spent wearing a leg support.

Having graduated from Eaton Hall Naval College he was serving in the battleship King George V, when the ship was in Tokyo Bay for the signing of the instrument of Japanese surrender. Between 1946 and 1949 he served in the cruiser London, which played a part in the 1949 Yangtze Incident. He was secretary to the ship’s captain when London was ordered upstream from Shanghai to assist the frigate Amethyst after she had been severely damaged by Communist Chinese shellfire. The cruiser, too, came under heavy fire with 13 killed, and was forced to retreat downstream. Fifty years later Walters returned to China to attend a reunion to commemorate their deaths, floating wreaths down the river.

He subsequently served on the staff of Lord Mountbatten in Malta, 1951-53. He was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple, in 1956, and began a legal career that culiminated in his appointment as Chief Naval Judge Advocate, 1972-75.

During that time he was instrumental in ensuring that the Women’s Royal Naval Service was subject to the Naval Discipline Act — a key stepping stone in the subsequent decision to allow Wrens to serve in ships. Previously, the WRNS did not have to abide by the Act, merely agreeing a voluntary code.

Walters was involved in several cases that became causes célèbres, and was Judge Advocate at the trial of five sailors for mutinous conduct on board the minesweeper Iveston at Ullapool in 1971 — the last time the charge has been brought in the Navy.

In retirement, he combined his legal training and Catholic faith with a stong interest in prisoners’ welfare and for many years he was a visitor at Wandsworth and Winchester prisons. He also served as chairman of industrial tribunals on the Southampton, Brighton and Reading circuit, retiring in 1998.

He is survived by his wife, Margaret, and by his daughter and two sons.

Rear-Admiral John Walters, CB, Assistant Chief of Defence Staff (Personnel and Logistics), 1981-84, was born on April 23, 1926. He died on May 7, 2008, aged 82