Lieutenant Charles Esme Thornton Warren MBE (1912–1988) was a bestselling British author, a Second World War Royal Navy submariner, and one of the first Allied 'human torpedo charioteers', practising methods of clandestine attack upon enemy harbours and ships.
He achieved extremely high marks in both the theoretical and practical examinations, but the engineer commander at the Leading Stokers School in Chatham Dockyard refused to grant him a commission.
He served during the Second World War and, in 1940, he took part in an operation intended to block the Danube at the Iron Gates, on the border between Serbia and Romania, to prevent German access to oil from the Ploiești oil fields.
[2] In 1943, Warren carried out the beach surveys of Sicily before the Allied landings and, in 1944, he was finally commissioned as a Sub-Lieutenant, but was seriously injured when he lost control of a chariot and sank to a depth of 100 feet.
[4] Jim Warren wrote jointly with James Benson and their books included: The 1955 British war film Above Us the Waves, starring John Mills, John Gregson and Donald Sinden, was based on Jim Warren's 1953 book of the same name.