AN early picture of Newport submarine hero 'Tubby' Linton has surfaced after almost 80 years - and 68 years after the VC hero's death.

The ace submarine-commander-to-be is pictured in 1932 at Hong Kong naval bases as a member of the soccer team of HMS Medway, a submarine depot ship.

"At this time he is a junior officer, probably a Sub-Lieutenant" said Mr Doug Pidington of Newport branch of the Royal Naval Association who has the picture.

"It is certainly the earliest picture we have of him as a serving naval officer and there is one other interesting thing about it.

"Commander Linton as he was to become is looking very comfortable in soccer kit.

"This was a man who had a rugby trial for England.

"Although he won fame as a submariner it seems likely that he was playing for the depot ship Medway rather than for one of the subs she supported.

'If he had been playing for a submarine he would almost certainly be on a team got together by a submarine squadron."

The stocky build of Malpas-born John Wallace Linton is already apparent in the picture, a copy of which has been donated to Newport council.

In the years that followed the snap, Tubby, as he was nicknamed, rose through the commissioned ranks of the service and at the war's start was the Navy's most skilled practitioner of submarine warfare.

From shortly after the time of her commissioning in 1941 until March 12 1943 when she disappeared with all hands HMS Turbulent stalked the Mediterranean in search of German and Italian warships and merchant vessels taking supplies to North Africa.

She sank 52,000 tons of shipping and destroyed three railway trains by gunfire during a patrol of 254 days.

"HMS Turbulent was a 'T' class submarine which are predecessors of the current Trafalgar class of subs which are currently on deployment off the coast of Libya" Mr Piddington added.

"The present submarines are serving in waters that would have been Tubby's happy hunting grounds."

Only last week Newport's mayor Councillor Bill Langsford joined members of the Royal Naval Association in dropping a wreath of poppies honouring Linton and his crew into the River Usk 68 years after the Turbulent and her crew were lost.

After racking up a huge tonnage of enemy shipping the Turbulent was sunk off Corsica probably by Italian depth-charges.

Her wreckage has never been found. Commander Linton was awarded the Victoria Cross - Britiain's highest award for valour - posthumously.

"The photograph is from the collection of Lieutenant-Commander W F Haselfoot who is also in the picture" Mr Piddington who served in the Royal Navy aboard aircraft carriers said.

"It was in an old suitcase.

"It's a jolly good thing somebody spotted it otherwise a little bit of Newport's history would have been sunk without trace."