FOR young seaman Victor Rothwell, his first sight of the enemy almost proved to be his last.

The brush with death at The Battle of the River Plate in December 1939 was just one of the dramatic episodes in a naval career which earned him ten medals, three awarded by foreign governments.

War veterans, family and friends paid their last respects to the Bolton born man at a funeral service at Pleasington Crematorium, near Blackburn, after he died on Saturday, August 17 aged 82. Roger Airey looks back on his life.

VICTOR Rothwell was on the bridge of HMS Exeter as she raced in to take on the pocket battleship, Admiral Graf Spee, off the Uruguayan coast, when his eagerness nearly brought about his downfall.

When a lookout called the enemy's position, the 19-year-old left his post at the gun control to get a better view.

His irate gunnery officer yelled at him to get back to his side of the bridge.

Seconds later, an enemy shell hit the spot where Victor had been standing and burst, killing everyone on that side of the bridge.

After further fierce exchanges of fire, the heavily damaged Exeter was forced to limp to the safety of the Falkland Islands.

On the way to safety they heard the news they wanted to hear.

Because of the damage inflicted, the Graf Spee had been scuttled under Hitler's orders a few miles off Montevideo harbour. Victory was theirs, but at the cost of 90 men with 120 wounded.

For Victor, who was born in Bolton in 1920, and joined the navy aged 15, it was the first of many skirmishes during a career which ended in 1950 and saw him rise from being a gunnery officer's runner to the rank of Petty Officer.

He settled in Park Road, Darwen, after meeting his wife Jennie in 1946.

Seldom out of the action at sea, he took part in two of the most dangerous convoy runs in the Second World War aboard the cruiser HMS Kenya.

The Kenya escorted merchant supply ships, evading German U-boats and bombers, to get desperate supplies to Russian allies in Murmansk and Archangel.

In 1992, the Russian government finally awarded Victor a medal for playing his part in the convoys, after intervention from former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev.

A few months later, the Maltese government presented Victor

with another medal to commemorate his part in the heroic Operation Pedestal. Kenya played a crucial role in breaking through a German blockade around the island.

Victor's son Philip said his father showed typical modesty when accepting the award.

He said: "He could have gone to a big ceremony at the Maltese Embassy in London but he said he would just receive it through the post.

"He would very rarely talk about his involvement in the war even though we tried to get him to.

"Sometimes watching a documentary on TV he would point out where they had got their facts wrong but that was about it."

Victor also saw action aboard many other ships including the aircraft carrier Shah in the Far East, but to him the Exeter was the most special.

He religiously attended veteran reunions both in Lancashire and in Plymouth, where the patched-up Exeter received a rapturous homecoming after River Plate.

Jennie, Philip and his brother Graham have spent the last few days sifting through a treasure trove of wartime memories that Victor kept in a suitcase on top of his wardrobe.

It contains precious photographs and letters from comrades, some of which they had never seen, and even a thankyou note signed by Winston Churchill, on the 20th anniversary of the Battle of the River Plate.

After leaving the Navy, he worked for 27 years at the Royal Ordnance Factory as an electrician and played an active role in Darwen life, not least as a volunteer with Darwen Library Theatre and Players.

He was a member of the British Legion and was given the honour three times of laying the wreath at Remembrance services in Darwen.