Edward Preston Young

Penguin Books was newly formed in 1935 by Allen Lane. Previously managing director at Bodley Head, it was Lane who invited Young to join his new company.[2] One of the first jobs given to Young was to go to London Zoo to make sketches of penguins to be used as the symbol for Penguin Books. Reportedly he returned from this job with the comment "My God, how those birds stink!"[3] but the logo he drew appeared on all Penguin books until 1949. Along with Lane, Young also devised the highly recognisable colour schemes used by the firm on book covers; orange/white/orange for novels, green for crime and detective novels, and pale blue for the Pelican series.[4] The designs were noted as classics in 2009 when the Royal Mail included Young's design in a series of stamps celebrating British design classics.[5] Young left Penguin in 1939 to join The Reprint Society but left the society soon after with the outbreak of the war.[2]

On 23 March 1941, Young was posted to the submarine HMS Umpire, and was promoted to lieutenant on 12 April,[11] Umpire was a brand new boat still undergoing commissioning trials on the River Medway. On commissioning the boat was ordered to join Third Submarine Flotilla at Dunoon. Attached to a north bound convoy, Umpire developed an engine problem and fell slightly behind the convoy. In the dark night of 19/20 July 1941 the boat was not seen by Peter Hendriks, an armed trawler escorting a south bound convoy, and the two ships collided. Umpire sank almost immediately. Young was not on duty at the time and after the collision found himself in a flooding boat resting on the bottom of the North Sea in 80 feet (24.4 m) of water. Having tried to surface the boat using compressed air and having searched for other survivors, Young ended up in the conning tower with the First Lieutenant, an Engine Room Artificer (ERA) and an able seaman. They estimated that as a result of the angle of the boat and the height of the conning tower there was only about 45 feet (13.7 m) above them and that they should attempt to swim to the surface. Closing the hatch below them, they forced open the upper hatch and escaped.[12] The ERA was never seen again and the First Lieutenant drowned after reaching the surface. Young and the seaman were picked up together with several men who had escaped through the engine room hatch. The Commanding Officer, Lt M Wingfield, had already been rescued, having been on the bridge when the collision occurred. All told 2 officers and 20 ratings died with only 2 officers, Young and Wingfield, and 14 ratings surviving.[2]

Following the sinking of Umpire Young was posted as Torpedo Officer to HMS Sealion, an S-class submarine. During his time on Sealion the boat operated in Arctic waters, being based for some time in Murmansk. On return from Russia, Young was made First Lieutenant of Sealion until she was docked for a refit.[4]

Young was then transferred to HMS Saracen again as First Lieutenant. Saracen was a new boat and on her "working up" patrol in the North Sea, Saracen sank the German submarine U-335.[13] For his part in this action Young was Mentioned in Despatches.[2][14] In the Mediterranean Saracen was part of Tenth Submarine Flotilla based in Malta. She undertook a number of patrols and Young was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) following the sinking of the Italian submarine Granito in December 1942.[2][15]

HMS/M P555. Young's first command

Returning to port on Christmas Day 1942, Young received a signal ordering him to return to the United Kingdom to attend the Commanding Officer's Qualifying Course (COQC).[16] Arriving back in England in January 1943 Young passed the COQC (or perisher as it was commonly known)[2] and was appointed commanding officer of HMS P555, an American S class boat acquired by the Royal Navy in 1942.[2] Young commanded the boat, known as State Express after the cigarette brand,[17] for three months before being appointed as commander of a new boat, then under construction. On his appointment to P555 Young was the first British RNVR officer to command a submarine.[4][18]

The boat was HMS Storm then being built by Cammell Laird on the River Mersey. On commissioning Storm joined Third Submarine Flotilla and her first patrol was to northern Norway. This was to be the only patrol in European waters as Young and Storm sailed to the Pacific in late December 1943 to become part of Fourth Submarine Flotilla at Trincomalee, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). Arriving in the Far East in February 1944 Storm carried out four patrols and one special mission from Sri Lanka. During the first two patrols they sank a Japanese navy minesweeper as well as several merchant ships. After two patrols Storm landed an agent on the Japanese held island of Pulau Weh in northwest Sumatra. Four days later, Storm returned to collect the agent, during which time the Japanese had prepared an ambush and Storm came under concerted gunfire as the two man special forces team rowed ashore to meet the agent. Young held Storm as close as possible to the shore to allow the two men to return to the boat. Once retrieved Young dived the submarine and made for home. One member of the crew had been wounded during the exchange of gunfire.[2]

By the end of March 1944 Young was promoted to acting lieutenant commander,[19] this stopped a previous source of embarrassment to guests who did not know Young. Young, a Lieutenant RNVR, wore the wavy stripes of the RNVR, while his First Lieutenant, Brian Mills, was a regular Royal Navy Lieutenant and wore the straight stripes of regular officer. Many visitors to Storm did not know Young and made the assumption that Mills, as the regular officer, was the commanding officer of the submarine.[1][20] During a final patrol from Trincomalee, Young took Storm into Port Owen on Tavoy Island and in a surface action sank several vessels.[2] During another surface action on this patrol Storm became the first submarine to pick up a Japanese prisoner, when a soldier, who was a passenger on a freighter sunk by Storm, was picked up.[21] For this series of patrols Young was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.[22]

In September 1944 Storm was transferred to the Eighth Submarine Flotilla operating from Fremantle, Australia. Two further patrols were undertaken while based in Australia and on the second of them a short lived record was set for the longest patrol by an S-class boat, when the patrol lasted 37 days and covered 7,151 miles (11,508 km).[2][23] After this patrol Storm and her crew were directed to return to the United Kingdom. Leaving Australia at the end of January, Storm reached England on 8 April 1945,[2] during which Young suffered recollections of the Umpire sinking when Storm was almost rammed by a merchant ship in fog in the Bay of Biscay.[24] Once home, Young parted company with Storm and was promoted to commander on 31 July 1945 with a staff appointment with Seventh Submarine Flotilla aboard HMS Cyclops becoming the only RNVR officer to hold such a post.[1][25][26] In June, for the patrols from Fremantle a Bar to his DSC was awarded.[27] Young left the navy in November 1945.[4]