Nicholas John Barker was born in Malta on 19 May 1933 and joined the Royal Navy in 1951. After a series of naval commands, including the minesweeper "Brereton" and the frigates "Jupiter", "Nubian" and "Arrow", he captained "HMS Endurance" from 1980-82. During the 1982 Falklands conflict, Endurance played a key role in providing intelligence to the British task force and in the recapture of South Georgia on 26 April. He retired in 1988. On retirement, he was awarded a Defence Fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge, founded an international trading company, North European Marine Services, and became Chairman of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fisherman. He was awarded a CBE 1982. He published "The Falklands, a common denominator" in 1984, and "Beyond Endurance; an epic of Whitehall and the South Atlantic" in 1997 and died in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 7 April 1997.