Albert Adams was born in Sandwich in Kent on 24 December 1908, the son of Albert and Ada Caroline Adams (née Lower). He joined the Royal Navy as an Engine Room Artificer Apprentice on 5 August 1924. On completion of his five-year Engine Room Artificer Apprenticeship, he served in the aircraft carriers HMS ARGUS and HMS COURAGEOUS, the cruisers HMS CHAMPION and HMS DURBAN and then in the destroyer HMS SKATE.

Albert Adams was promoted to Warrant Engineer on 1 January 1938 and was then appointed to the Submarine Depot Ship HMS MAIDSTONE on 1 March 1938. On 26 February 1940 he was appointed the HMS DOLPHIN for submarine training. This was followed by an appointment HMS L27 as the Engineer on 26 May 1940. Albert Adams was next appointed to HMS SEAWOLF as the Engineer on 15 October 1940. He was awarded the DSC – see Supplement dated 3 January 1941 to the London Gazette, “for determination in a successful attack on an escorted enemy supply ship“.

After three years in HMS SEAWOLF, he was appointed to HMS PORPOISE as the Engineer on 4 October 1943. PORPOISE was transferred to the Fourth Submarine Flotilla at Trincomalee, Ceylon and, in January 1945, was ordered to lay a minefield in the Straits of Malacca near Penang. The Commanding Officer reported on 9 January that the minelay had been successfully completed. Nothing more was heard from the submarine which was assessed as lost with all hands. It is understood from Japanese records that a submarine was spotted and bombed by an aircraft near Penang, scoring a direct hit with one of its bombs.

Albert Adams is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial on Panel 88, Column 3.