Joseph Leo Anthony Gradwell DSC was a British barrister, a magistrate and a Second World War Royal Navy volunteer, who in July 1942 against orders, led his own RN-adapted trawler HMS Ayrshire and three merchant ships from the disaster of Convoy PQ 17 into Arkhangelsk, Soviet Union.
10 Facts About Leo Gradwell
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Leo Gradwell was educated at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire and then read classics at Balliol College, Oxford.
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Leo Gradwell joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman, serving in the First World War.
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At the cessation of hostilities, Leo Gradwell was discharged from the Navy and started a pupillage in Liverpool and was called to the bar in 1925.
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Leo Gradwell entered chambers in Liverpool, then practised as an advocate on the Northern Circuit.
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At the outbreak of the Second World War, Leo Gradwell was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a lieutenant.
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Leo Gradwell returned to active service in 1942 and was given command of the anti-submarine warfare adapted 575 long tons Middlesbrough-built trawler MS Ayrshire, renamed HMS Ayrshire, with a crew of volunteer fishermen.
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Leo Gradwell arranged a defence, formulated around the fact that the Troubador was carrying a cargo of bunkering coal and drums of white paint: the crews painted all the vessels white, covered decks with white linen, and arranged the Sherman tanks on the merchant vessels' decks into a defensive ring, with loaded main armament.
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Leo Gradwell was made a stipendiary magistrate on the London circuit at Marlborough Street Magistrates' Court in 1951, where he shared an office in a tempestuous relationship with Edward Robey, the son of comedian George Robey.
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The public prosecutor brought an action under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act, which Leo Gradwell agreed with, and Leo Gradwell ordered that all copies of the book be destroyed, though that applied only to seized copies within the Magistrate's Court.