In World War II he was first in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and then served as signals officer Force H in the Mediterranean where he earned the Distinguished Service Cross.
He was promoted to Captain at the beginning of 1953, and spent two years as naval attaché in Moscow, also covering Warsaw and Helsinki where he alerted the Admiralty to the potential growth of the Soviet Navy.
At the end of World War II he published his first novel Phantom Fleet, a naval yarn, under the pseudonym "Sea Lion": as a serving officer he could not use his own name.
He also wrote a number of radio plays for the BBC, including several serials for Children's Hour which featured the adventures of two midshipmen, "Tiger" Ransome and "Snort" Kenton.
His novels included This Creeping Evil, an allegory; The Diamond Rock, which was set in the Caribbean near Martinique during the Napoleonic Wars and was based on a true incident; and The Quest of John Clare, about a family cursed over generations.
He published studies of the main battles of both world wars and Nelson; a biography of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, Charlie B; and Cowan's War, an account of the British campaign in the Baltic (1918–19) under Admiral Sir Walter Cowan, which successfully thwarted Soviet Russia from seizing control of the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.