An individualistic and — when occasion demanded it — even a piratical ship’s captain, Robert Atkinson commanded a succession of corvettes on convoy escort during the Second World War, sinking three U-boats and winning the Distinguished Service Cross three times.
Yet he was most proud of his stewardship of British Shipbuilders (BS), of which he became chairman in the early 1980s. One of the ships on the company’s books was the aircraft carrier Illustrious, which was still under construction when in April 1982 the Falklands war broke out. Reinforcement to the available naval airpower in the South Atlantic became urgent, and it was imperative that Illustrious was completed. Thanks to the management structures that Atkinson had been able to impose on this sprawling agglomeration of