 He left Kendal School at 14 and worked as an insurance clerk from 1936 until military service.In early 1940 he volunteered for the Navy and was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, into submarines and served on the famous French submarine .Part French himself, he was awarded the Légion d'honneur, the Croix de Guerre avec Palme and a "citation à l'ordre de L'Armée" for his spy landings and torpedo actions in the Mediterranean.