Frederick Thornton "Fritz" Peters & Bar was a Canadian-born recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for valour in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
In October 1939 Peters re-volunteered for Royal Navy service. He was made the commander of an anti-submarine flotilla. In 1940 he won a Bar for his DSC and was later appointed acting captain for special services. Peters was 53 years old, and a captain in the Royal Navy during the Second World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC: Operation Reservist was an attempt to capture Oran Harbour, Algeria and prevent it from being sabotaged by its French garrison. The two sloops and were packed with British Commandos, soldiers of the 6th US Armored Infantry Regiment and a small detachment of US Marines. On 8 November 1942 Captain Peters, commanding in Walney, led his force through the boom towards the jetty in the face of point-blank fire from shore batteries, the sloop, and the destroyer. Blinded in one eye, he alone of 11 officers and men on the bridge survived. Besides him, 13 ratings survived Walney sinking. The destroyer reached the jetty disabled and ablaze and went down with her colours flying. Captain Peters and a handful of men managed to reach the shore, where they were taken prisoner. Hartland came under fire from the and blew up with the loss of half her crew. The survivors, like those of Walney, were taken prisoner as they reached shore. Captain Peters was also awarded the U.S. Army Distinguished Service Cross for the same actions. The citation, issued in Allied Force Headquarters General Orders No. 19 November 23, 1942, stated that: The survivors were released on 10 November 1942 when the French garrison surrendered. In the meantime, the French systematically destroyed the harbour facilities at Oran: Operation Reservist was thus a complete failure. In addition to his service with the Royal Navy, Fritz worked with British Naval Intelligence and advised Prime Minister Winston Churchill. British double agent Kim Philby noted his admiration for Secret Intelligence Service instruction leader "Commander Peters" in his book My Silent War.
Death
Captain Peters was killed in an air crash three days after his release on 13 November 1942. He was coming back to Britain in a Sunderland seaplane which crash landed in Plymouth Sound in thick fog, at the entrance to the Royal Navy's Devonport Dockyard, near Plymouth, Devon. In spite of efforts by the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Wynton Thorpe RAAF, who held on to him for ninety minutes in the water, he was dead when the rescue launch reached them. He has no known grave and is remembered on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial, Hampshire, England. Mount Peters near Nelson, British Columbia, where his mother lived in her last years with the family of her daughter Helen Dewdney and her husband E.E.L. Dewdney, was named in his honour in 1946. A display of photos and panels on his life is on the main floor of the Daniel J. MacDonald Building in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. His name, along with the names of his three brothers who served in the First World War, is on memorial plaques in the St. Peter's Anglican Church in Charlottetown. In 2012 a biography based on family letters by his great-nephew Sam McBride titled "The Bravest Canadian -- Fritz Peters VC: The Making of a Hero of Two World Wars" was published by Granville Island Publishing. The book earned a Heritage Award from the PEI Heritage Foundation and first place in the B.C. Genealogical Society's 2012 family history book awards.
