Donald George Frederick Wyville Macintyre DSO & Two Bars, DSC (26 January 1904 – 23 May 1981) was a Royal Navy officer during the Second World War and a successful convoy escort commander.

In 1939, he returned to Britain to take command of the destroyer HMS Venomous, joining a Channel flotilla as war broke out.

Hesperus was very similar to other H-class destroyers, but had been modified with such peculiarities as unfamiliar markings on the gun-sights and no director sight; being one of six vessels originally built for the Brazilian navy.

[3] Macintyre and Hesperus were transferred to the Atlantic, working alongside HMS Hurricane; the two ships spent most of that year's winter battling severe weather,[4] before Macintyre was moved to take command as SOE (senior officer escort) of Walker, handing Hesperus over to Commander AA Tait in March 1941.

Macintyre's first action as SOE, was with convoy HX 112 as part of a major battle which resulted in the destruction of two U-boats, U-100 and U-99 commanded by Joachim Schepke and Otto Kretschmer, for the loss of five ships.

As a result of Luftwaffe attention, during which Macintyre's car was "written off", it was decided to move the escort ships from Liverpool to the relative safety of Londonderry in Northern Ireland.

On his first voyage up the River Foyle to the port, Macintyre was horrified to find that the pilot that he had embarked for the short trip would not use the conventional methods of navigation, preferring to steer instead for 'Mother Murphy's white cow' or 'Paddy Monaghan's byre'.

After a refit, which included the installation of radar, Walker was assigned to the Home Fleet at Hvalfjord in Iceland, as an escort to capital ships.

It was during this period Macintyre married Monica Strickland, on 11 November 1941 at Brompton Oratory[6] in South Kensington, London.

[8] Whilst in Iceland, the US Navy repair ship Prairie was badly damaged by a fire which had started on the wooden jetty to which she was moored.

Macintyre's chief concern were the two British corvettes which were moored close to the Prairie and their deck armament of depth charges.

[12] Among a stream of official signals sent while the escort group was still at sea, Macintyre received a personal message informing him that he had become a father on Guy Fawkes Day (5 November).

[13] On the next homeward-bound convoy in late December, Macintyre had sanctioned the loading of a large number of Christmas turkeys in the bow section of Hesperus, a decision he was to regret.

Hesperus kept her two signal searchlights on the U-boat's conning tower which probably distracted the German skipper into making a fatal error, i.e. crossing the British destroyers' bow.

The celebrations were somewhat tempered when it was discovered that Hesperus had sustained significant damage to her bows and her extra cargo had been reduced to a sodden mess.

The northerly sailing convoy, ONS 4, needed an escort; that task fell to the B2 Group which now consisted of two destroyers, Hesperus and Whitehall and five corvettes.

Macintyre always appreciated the opportunity of a hot bath and being able to sleep in a bunk that remained stationary once harbour was safely reached.

He was understandably very unhappy (see para three of 'Successes' below), but revenge had to wait until that night when Hesperus damaged U-223 which only just managed to return to St Nazaire.

Macintyre in Hesperus was faced with a dilemma; his own ship was very short of depth charges, the other destroyer in the escort group, Whitehall, was low on fuel.

Bickerton moved in to administer the coup-de-grace, but she was beaten to it by a Swordfish from Videx which dropped two more depth charges on the hapless German vessel.

[23] Before and after D-Day (6 June 1944), Macintyre, Bickerton and the 5th Escort Group were part of the RN's contribution to the invasion of France by patrolling in the relatively shallow waters of the Western Approaches.

[25] On the night of 25 June, after investigating a contact which turned out to be another wreck, Bickerton was hurrying to catch up with the rest of the group when she detected an echo, subsequently identified as U-269.

On 18 August she was acting as part of the screen for the cruiser Kent and two aircraft carriers, Nabob and Trumpeter in the southern Arctic Ocean.

Due to the importance attached to saving Nabob and the proximity of the German-held Norwegian coast, it was decided to sink Bickerton with a torpedo from a destroyer.

[28] The change in the nature of anti-submarine warfare, with U-boats switching to lone-wolf attacks in coastal areas, required different tactics and was "best left to fresher men".

He was also an equally successful escort commander, taking seriously the "fateful instructions that" 'the safe and timely arrival of the convoy' "was our main objective".

The vast majority (99.8%), arrived safely, a record of which Macintyre was justifiably proud, although he was "in a fury"[32] at the loss of the two ships when escorting SC 129.