In a war at sea served very largely in destroyers, Innes Hamilton took part in some of the most celebrated naval campaigns, from the hunt for the Bismarck, through the defence of the Malta convoys to the D-Day assault on the Normandy beaches. One of the most famous ships in which he served was the Tribal Class Destroyer Maori, in which he sailed from the outbreak of war until her loss from bombing in February 1942.

In that time she had survived the evacuation of troops under fire at Namsos, in Norway; the gunfire of the mighty Bismarck; and an action against Italian cruisers in the Mediterranean, before succumbing to German air attacks in harbour at Malta. Hamilton was the last man to leave her as she went down by the stern.

Kenneth Innes Hamilton was born in 1914 and entered the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, as a cadet at the age of 14. At the outbreak of war he was a lieutenant in the destroyer Maori.

When the Phoney War turned into something much more lethal, with the German occupation of Norway on April 9, 1940, Maori was one of the many destroyers dispatched to the scene. Over the next few days the Royal Navy inflicted severe damage on the naval forces that had escorted the German invasion. But it was too late. British forces were landed at Namsos and Andalsnes on April 16 and 18, but made little headway against the Germans, who had established a firm grip onshore. It soon became evident that the British forces would have to be evacuated.

Maori was one of the last ships to re-embark troops at Namsos under constant air attack. This rescue operation, historically somewhat overshadowed by the much greater one which took place shortly afterwards at Dunkirk, is recorded on a memorial stone to the casualties suffered by Maori and her sister ships, which was unveiled by the British Ambassador to Norway in May 2000.

Maori’s next major action was as part of the pursuit of the Bismarck, after the German battleship’s steering gear had been wrecked by an attack by Swordfish torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal on the evening of May June 26, 1941. Maori was one of five destroyers of the 4th Flotilla under the command of the dashing Captain Philip Vian, which intercepted Bismarck, aiming to try to slow her down with torpedoes, should the Swordfish attacks prove abortive.

Vian soon realised that the Bismarck had taken a serious hit from the Swordfish, and he closed in with his destroyers with a view to slowing her down further. It was an exciting but perilously unequal contest, with the 4.7-inch guns of the Tribals — Maori, Cossack, Zulu and Sikh — and the Polish Piorun pitted against the battleship’s 15.2-inch and 5.9-inch batteries. Maori and Piorun were soon under fire from inside five miles range, but miraculously took no hits from their adversary’s massive shells. All the Tribals launched torpedoes, two of which are believed to have hit.

After the final destruction of the Bismarck by the battleships King George V and Rodney, Maori and the cruiser Dorsetshire (which had administered the coup de grâce with torpedoes), closed in to rescue survivors. However, as this operation was underway there was a report of a U-boat in the area which compelled both Maori and Dorsetshire to leave the scene. No more than 110 of the Bismarck’s complement of 2,500 could be picked up from the water, a fact that always haunted Hamilton.

Hamilton was still serving in Maori when, in December 1941, the destroyer participated in yet another fight against the odds, a remarkable torpedo attack by her, two British other destroyers and the Dutch Isaac Sweers on two Italian 6-inch gun cruisers which were carrying a deck cargo of petrol from Palermo to Tripoli. Taking a leaf out of Nelson’s book, the British flotilla leader, Commander Stokes in the destroyer Sikh, led his ship close inshore to the North African coast and attacked the Italians from the landward side.

Expecting any threat to come from seaward and unable to see the destroyers with the land behind them, the cruisers Alberto di Giussano and Alberico da Barbiano were taken completely by surprise. Both were torpedoed and sunk with their precious cargoes.

Thereafter Maori took part of a number of Malta convoys as the struggle for mastery in the Mediterranean neared its peak, with the island, its airfields and harbour at the very heart of the strategic equation. Eventually, after sustaining repeated air attacks Maori was hit at her berth in Grand Harbour by a bomb that exploded in her engine room. Some of her own ammunition detonated and she began to settle by the stern. Hamilton, the last officer to leave her, was awarded the first of his two DSCs.

Transferring to the cruiser Penelope, Hamilton next took part in the Second Battle of Sirte on March 22, 1942. In this (the now Admiral) Vian’s cruisers and destroyers saved a convoy from the clutches of a greatly superior Italian force, including the battleship Littorio.

Attacks from German aircraft continued, however, after the convoy reached Malta. In harbour Penelope suffered such damage over successive days in early April from shrapnel and shell splinters that she was soon nicknamed “HMS Pepperpot”. In the meantime she put up a terrific barrage against her attackers.

Her captain was wounded, but insisted on staying with his ship. On April 7, 300 aircraft attacked her and it became clear that if she did not get out of Grand Harbour her days were numbered. The following day she undocked just before a bomb fell on the position of her berth, and during the evening she took on more ammunition and made her escape towards Gibraltar. There she was greeted by cheering crowds on April 10.

Later in the war Hamilton was senior officer of an escort group in the Lend Lease destroyer Dacres (formerly USS Duffy), and he subsequently took part in the naval operations that supported the Normandy landings. He ended the war with a Bar to his DSC.

At the 1945 general election Hamilton stood as a Liberal in Blackpool, coming in second behind the Conservative candidate Brigadier Toby Low (later to become better known as Lord Aldington). Hamilton subsequently retired from the Navy and founded his own investment consultancy, in which he worked into his eighties.

He is survived by his wife, Igraine, and by a son. Another son predeceased him.

Lieutenant-Commander Innes Hamilton, DSC and Bar, wartime convoy escort commander, was born on July 20, 1916. He died on January 29, 2003, aged 86.