Thread: MILITARY (& RELATED) OBITUARIES

The Telegraph publishes books of its best obituaries which can be found on Amazon...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...488166-5962053

My favourite was for Charles Upham VC and Bar who died a couple of years ago which prompted someone to wirte a letter to the editor stating that one was reminded of Pte Jones' Dads Army character' 'They don't like it Upham!'

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...556211,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...556206,00.html

Roddy Thesiger
Art dealer who helped to rediscover masterpieces of 17th-century Italian painting

RODDY THESIGER had a life of extreme contrasts. After courageous war service he became an art dealer and was largely responsible for creating a new taste for the neglected Italian 17th century.
Roderic Miles Doughty Thesiger was born in 1915 in Addis Ababa, the youngest of three sons of Wilfred Thesiger, the British Minister to Ethiopia. The explorer Wilfred Thesiger was his elder brother. Roddy was educated at Eton, Christ Church, Oxford, and the Courtauld Institute. When war was declared in 1939 he joined the Army and was commissioned in the Welsh Guards.



In July 1941 he was one of the first volunteers to be transferred into the 1st Parachute Brigade. After the Allied landing in North Africa he was dropped with the brigade far in advance of the British First Army. After initial successes against light opposition the brigade was engaged in heavy fighting against superior German and Italian forces, during which Thesiger was wounded.

He recovered in time to take part in the invasion of Sicily. The brigade’s task was to capture the bridge at Primasole, but the drop was badly managed and the parachutists and their equipment were dispersed over a wide area. Thesiger was one of the few who reached the bridge. In October 1943 the brigade was withdrawn to England.

He was next in action in September 1944 in the gallant but unsuccessful attempt to capture the bridges over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem. The enemy was believed to be demoralised and few in numbers. Intelligence reports of SS divisions and German armour near Arnhem were discountedby the high command, but proved tragically correct. The 1st Parachute Brigade was the first formation to be dropped. Thesiger was wounded on the first day and taken prisoner. He spent the rest of the war in a PoW camp near Kassel, and afterwards admitted that although tormented by hunger, he had rather enjoyed the experience.

After demobilisation he returned to the art world, initially as an assistant in the Tate Gallery, then as the expert on modern paintings at Sotheby’s, and later dealing on his own account. In 1956 he joined Colnaghi as the director in charge of Old Master paintings.

Colnaghi’s could not afford the work of the great Renaissance artists, so Thesiger, who travelled regularly to Italy, specialised in the less expensive art of the 17th century. With the help of two art dealers, the Sestrieri brothers, he was able to make purchases from that part of the Barberini collection that had been cleared for export.

His greatest coup was a painting first seen in an attic behind a line of washing. It proved to be Van Dyck’s portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria painted for Pope Urban VIII and documented in the Vatican archives; it is now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

Among other purchases, Andrea Sacchi’s Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness went to the National Museum of Wales, a large Lanfranco, from a Sotheby’s sale, to the Getty Museum in Malibu, and Diana Huntress by the Genoese artist G. B. Gaulli, bought in a country auction, to the Minneapolis Museum.

Thesiger supervised closely the restoration of the paintings he acquired and frequently visited the restorers to make sure that cleaning was not carried too far.

He succeeded James Byam Shaw as chairman of Colnaghi’s in 1968, but retired to Herefordshire in 1971 when the firm was bought by Lord Rothschild. During his retirement he acted as an unofficial adviser to the National Museum of Wales and the National Trust.

He was twice married. His first marriage, to Mary Rose Charteris, was dissolved in 1946. He is survived by his second wife, Ursula Whitworth, and their son and daughter.




Roderic Thesiger, art dealer, was born on November 8, 1915. He died on March 5, 2005, aged 89.

Problems posting in this thread now sorted, thanks mods.

Sorry to see so many SOE and Yugoslavia veterans in recent obituaries.

Anyway I think this obituary is another classic, even without the spring-loaded toy rat... The original piece in the Scotsman had a photograph of a very dashing young man in the desert, adorned by enormous WW2 beret, duffel coat and impressive moustache.

• Capt Lewis Archibald Gibson, MM LRDG
  
  CONTRIBUTED
  
  Born: 8 November, 1919, in Crieff.
  Died: 4 April, 2005, in Perth, aged 85.
  
  AS A young man Archie Gibson was a strikingly handsome, tall, athletic figure. He had great personal warmth and a friendly, outgoing personality. A highly intelligent man with artistic and entrepreneurial flair, he also had wanderlust in spadefuls.
  
  Archie was always making unexpected moves; always looking for adventure, he had no intention of being a bank manager, like his grandfather and father. He loved being outdoors; he enjoyed sports; but above all, he craved a motorbike and the freedom and opportunities it could provide.
  
  In due course he became a soldier, husband, father, businessman, traveller, artist, musician and friend to many.
  
  He was a fine singer and could play many musical instruments. At the age of 14 he played the pipes for Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands when, in the early 1930s, she used to take up temporary residence in St Fillans. Archie played his pipes upon her arrival and he played outside her dining room in the evenings. He accompanied her to the lochside - carrying her painting equipment. When she left in 1933, Archie was given an ornate envelope. Expecting some monetary reward, he opened it after he had "piped her awa" to find a certificate confirming him "official piper to Her Majesty Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands", but alas no money.
  
  The Gibson family have long banking and military traditions. Archie was born a year after his father’s return from the First World War.
  
  He joined the Scots Guards as a teenager, and when war was declared in 1939 he was already serving with the Long Range Desert Group in north Africa, covertly monitoring the Italian military build-up in the Middle East.
  
  His unit was closely involved with the formation of the Special Air Service commando unit under David Stirling. He and Stirling often travelled together, with Archie driving through the desert nights in enemy-occupied territory to infiltrate enemy aerodromes, destroy their planes, and cut supply lines. Archie was still just 22 years old.
  
  He went on to serve throughout the war and fought with distinction in some of the most difficult and challenging war zones. He was parachuted into Yugoslavia to wage guerrilla war with Tito’s partisans, and he served in many other European operations. Archie had progressively earned promotion to the rank of captain. He was mentioned in despatches and decorated for bravery.
  
  When coming up through Italy in 1943, Archie went to a hospital to see his sister, who was there with the Queen Alexandra Nursing Service. It was there that he met Joan, also a nurse, and so began a partnership that lasted until her death last year.
  
  When Archie was demobbed, he bought a second-hand Rolls Royce in London with his demob money. He drove back north home to civilian life - broke, but in great style.
  
  He and Joan were married in 1946 in a simple, unconventional ceremony that cost the equivalent of 35p for the certificate and 50p for the book token as a present for the minister. In due course Archie started his own hardware wholesale business. His son, Paul, born in 1956, went into the business with Archie, and when he was old enough to take charge, Archie was off.
  
  While Joan started an antiques business, Archie reinvented himself as a free born man - a man with many interests and guises. He travelled extensively and lived in various European countries, then in Ireland for 15 years.
  
  Archie designed, made and sold jewellery. He was a street trader in Portugal, Belgium and elsewhere. He was a hippy and travelling magician. He organised and managed the Crieff and Comrie folk clubs, and the highly successful Crieff Folk Festival in the 1960s. He became a professional solo entertainer - and with his flute, or whistle and his guitar, coupled with his good singing voice, he developed a routine that ensured continuous solo engagements in concerts and with leading folk groups. Billy Connolly, The Corries, The Dubliners, Archie Fisher, and many other famous names were all regular visitors to Gleniffer in Crieff.
  
  Joan periodically joined him and they had great times together. He moved continuously by motorbike, car or van, complete with wood-burning stove and chimney. The van was his workshop and his home. He slept wherever night fell.
  
  Archie later re-invented himself again and became an author. He trained as a psychotherapist, and became a teacher.
  
  Archie’s life was full to overflowing. It was unconventional, varied and happy. He was blessed with Joan, a wonderful, tolerant wife. Archie saw things in an individual and different way to most people - reflected in his dress; his variety of headwear; the spring-loaded toy rat he kept in his pocket or inside his shirt for when he wished to attract attention.
  
  Instead of a tip for a waitress, he’d give her earrings. He made and delivered jewellery to be sold for the Marie Curie cancer care charity and he sported their daffodil symbol. For his 75th birthday, Archie bought himself a Harley Davidson.
  
  Archie’s father originally painted the boulder dragon emerging from the wood just outside St Fillans, and to the delight of many children, Archie re-painted it. It’s an interesting and humorous landmark. Archie wrote verse and limericks. He was always making notes and sketches. He loved to quote lines of his own and others.
  
  In recent years his body became frail but his intellect, his mind and his sense of humour remained as sharp as ever. Archie was buried in a wicker coffin, with the urn containing Joan’s ashes by his side, covered by his army duffle coat and his LRDG cap.
  
  He is survived by his son, Paul, granddaughter, Emma, and sisters, Paddy and Eva.

WEB SOURCE

Wow...


Petty Officer Norman Walton
(Filed: 10/05/2005)

Norman Walton , who has died aged 84, was the only survivor of the 765 crew of the cruiser Neptune, sunk in a minefield off Libya in 1941.

ISA Brochures

The loss of Neptune occurred on the night of December 19. Commanded by Captain Rory O'Conor, she was leading Force K, a cruiser raiding squadron sent to intercept and destroy an important Italian convoy carrying Panzer tanks, troops and supplies to Tripoli.

Having become trapped in a minefield 12 miles offshore, Neptune struck four mines in three hours and sank with the loss of 764 officers and men. Thanks to his courage, tenacity and supreme physical fitness, Able Seaman Walton, then aged 20, survived three days in the water and two on a raft before being picked up by an Italian torpedo boat; after 15 months in Italian PoW camps, he was released in 1943.

Walton later gave a dramatic account of the sinking: "We had been at action stations since 8pm, when soon after midnight there was an explosion off our starboard bow. The captain stopped engines and went astern but we hit another mine, blowing the screws and most of the stern away. Then we were hit abaft the funnel. We were ordered up top and had a bad list to port and were down in the stern. The destroyer HMS Kandahar came up to take us in tow.

"With seven others, I was asked to go forward to help with the tow, but Kandahar then hit a mine and slewed off. Then we hit a fourth mine and we were lifted up and dropped back again. I got the Petty Officer off the forecastle from beneath the anchor chain but he had broken his back. Four of us - Price, Middleton, Quinn and me - climbed down the anchor. They jumped in, but I wanted somewhere to swim to, not just float around, and when I saw a Carley raft I jumped in and swam to it.

"I took the tow rope back to Middleton, who had no lifejacket, and when we got back to the raft it was crowded - about 30 people on and around it. We saw the ship capsize and sink, and gave her a cheer as she went down. We picked up Captain O'Conor, who was clinging to what looked like an anchor buoy, and he and three other officers finished up on a cork raft attached to ours. The sea was thick with oil and most of us had swallowed a lot of it. A few died around us that night and at daylight there were 16 of us left. The weather was pretty rough, and two officers tried to swim towards the Kandahar, but they never made it."

Since there was no room for him on the raft, Walton simply hung on to it - periodically swimming around it in circles in order to keep warm. "By the fourth day there were only four of us left, including the captain, who died in my arms that night. I was in the water for three days before being able to find room aboard the raft. Most of the lads just gave up the ghost, but I was very fit because of playing so much sport and this is probably why I survived.

"I had a smashed leg, and by Christmas Eve on the fifth day there was only Price and myself left. I saw an aircraft, waved to it and an hour later an Italian torpedo boat came alongside and threw me a line. I collapsed when I got on board and woke up on Christmas Day in a Tripoli hospital. They told me Price was dead."

When he was picked up, Walton found that the oil in the water had temporarily blinded him: "On Boxing Day I got my sight back and looked in a mirror. My tongue was swollen to twice its size and my nose spread across my face, which was black from the oil and from exposure. Still, apart from my broken leg I was almost back to normal by New Year's Day, when I was put on a ship bound for Italy full of German and Italian troops going on leave."

The eldest of nine children, John Norman Walton was born on January 15 1921 at Rowlands Gill, near Gateshead. His father was a professional footballer who played for Gateshead and Everton. Brought up at Swalewell, near Gateshead, Norman was educated locally before finding employment as a steelworker. He joined the Navy in September 1938, aged 17. In 1941, before joining Neptune, Walton served in the destroyer Janus. He was then drafted to the crew of a whaler taking supplies along the North African coast to Tobruk; the boat was sunk by enemy aircraft, and Walton spent several hours in the water before being rescued.

Later that year, he was serving at Alexandria in the depot ship Woolwich. The submarine Tetrarch was alongside and he was invited down "for a wet" to celebrate a friend's birthday. After a bottle of rum had been consumed, Walton suddenly realised that the submarine had sailed, and he was added to the "next of kin" list. As they left Alexandria harbour, Walton dived in and swam back to the breakwater, returning to his ship undetected. Tetrarch never returned from patrol, and his parents received a telegram saying that he was missing; Walton had some explaining to do. He joined Neptune on November 13 1941.

After his release from a PoW camp in 1943, he served in a frigate on Russian convoys and then in the minesweeper Rowena, before being de-mobbed in 1946.

Walton settled in Leeds and became a professional boxer, fighting under the name of Patsy Dodds - Dodds was his wife Irene's maiden name, and he took Patsy because, in the fairground fights in which he started his boxing career, he pretended to be in trouble to deceive his opponent into over-confidence. In those early days he fought both in gloves and with bare knuckles.

Continuing his boxing career until the late 1950s, Walton had 147 recorded fights as a middleweight, winning 82, losing 61 and drawing four. He fought three times for the Northern Area Championship against Bert Ingram, but lost on each occasion.

Called up again during the Korean War, Walton served another five years in the Navy. After retiring as a petty officer, he joined a container firm in Leeds as works director. He retired to Pudsey in 1985.

The circumstances surrounding the loss of Neptune had been kept secret by the Navy; the crew's next of kin merely received a telegram saying that their husbands or sons were "missing on active war service". Of the crew, 150 were New Zealanders, representing the greatest loss of life suffered by New Zealand in a naval action. Sixty years after the event, a chance meeting between Norman Walton and Commander John McGregor, whose father had died in Neptune, resulted in the formation of the Neptune Association, now a thriving organisation of more than 250 members. Walton was the obvious choice for president.

Two years ago, when he was 82, Walton was mugged by two youths who demanded his wallet. Walton told them: "You will have to get it out of my pocket," and - as one of the men leaned forward - the former boxer butted him on the nose, then landed a left hook on the second and struck both of them with his stick. As they ran off, what upset Walton most was not being able to chase after them.

Norman Walton, who died on April 20, married Irene Dodds in 1943. She died in 2002, and he is survived by their daughter. A son died at the age of three.



Dating

Westbury

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RIP

Albert Marshall
First World War cavalryman and last survivor of the Battle of the Somme
24 May 2005

Albert Marshall, groom and wartime soldier: born Elmstead Market, Essex 15 March 1897; married 1921 Florence Day (died 1984; one son, and two sons and two daughters deceased); died Ashtead, Surrey 16 May 2005.

Albert Marshall, who has died at the age of 108, was the last survivor of the Battle of the Somme. A dyed-in-the-wool countryman, he epitomised the Great War volunteer. A natural horseman, he was still riding in his early nineties.

Smiler, as he was affectionately known, was born in 1897 in a small village outside Colchester. When he was two his father put him on to a wooden cart drawn by a goat. He later put him on the goat's back - it bucked him off. His father put him back on facing the goat's tail and taught him how to hold on. From there he progressed to a pony and then to his great love, the horse. On Sundays his father would take him to the garrison town of Colchester to see the soldiers parade for church. He was excited by their red coats and that each regiment had their own march. He learned words of many of the marches and over a hundred years later in a robust voice would sing them and the songs he learned in the Great War.

When he was four his mother died. His brothers and sisters looked after him and pulled him to school on an orange box on wheels. He was happy at school and liked to recall that the teaching staff were a bit "fishy" - there was a Miss Herring and a Miss Salmon and the headmaster was Mr Whiting. After school he, along with other boys, would collect manure for the garden. The horse or pony was still the main form of transport - he did not see a motor car in the village until 1908.

A bit of a fighter at school, he recalled Mr Whiting asking him to give a good beating to a boy who was bullying the smaller ones. In those days the whole school took a day's holiday to lift potatoes or pick pears and the reward was sometimes a stick of liquorice, which cost a farthing. Every Boxing Day the villagers assembled with their pets for an unusual race - pigs, goats, ferrets, donkeys, cats, dogs, tame mice and even a cockerel - all wearing collars on a lead. The winning owner then had to climb a greasy pole to reach his prize, a dead duck.

On leaving school he became an apprentice carpenter in a shipyard for a wage of 2s 4d (12p). Trudging home one afternoon he was given a lift by the local milkman, who offered him a job. At the age of 14 he was delivering milk to the entire village.

His life changed when Lord Kitchener, accompanied by the world heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson, came to Colchester to recruit young men on the outbreak of the First World War. He volunteered for the Essex Yeomanry in Christmas week 1914. Asked his name and date of birth, he told the sergeant major he was born in 1897. He replied, "Too young. Go outside and think about it." He returned and when asked when he was born replied 1896. "That's perfect" came the reply. His military training began in the January snow of 1915. Doing physical jerks he bent down and made a quick snowball, which he threw at the man ahead of him. The drill sergeant spotted this and rebuked him, but Albert feigned innocence. "Yes, son, I'm talking to you, Smiler," roared the sergeant. From that moment on he was nicknamed Smiler.

He went to France in November 1915. He worked in a four-man section that would advance, then dig in to await the enemy, while one man looked after the horses. They would attempt to hold their position until the pioneers or engineers came to dig proper trenches. He experienced gas twice and recalled:

You couldn't stop crying - tears were running from my eyes. When we had the first lot, we had a piece of muslin, which we tied round the nose and mouth. But that gas is still with me today. My skin is all dry, it feels like a needle pricking you.

Marshall was to lose many friends during the war but it was the death of his best friend Lennie Passiful that deeply moved him. Passiful had his rifle through the smallest of holes aiming to kill a sniper when he was hit:

I saw him fall. I was in the trench close by him and put my arm out and caught him. His rifle stuck in the hole - but the sniper had got him, right through that tiny little hole. He later died of his wounds.

Marshall deeply resented that £1 was deducted from his final pay for the blanket in which Passiful was buried. Over 80 years later he was to return to France, where he laid a wreath on his grave. He was to recall, "I now know exactly where Lennie is. He was so very young."

On one occasion he witnessed a cavalry attack against a German patrol about 100 strong. They were surprised and quickly scattered but were cut down by sword. He also saw the Bengal Lancers charge:

They didn't hang about, they never bothered with saddles - they just jumped on and galloped off. It was the only time I saw a lance used. They were born horsemen - magnificent.

His worst experience was what he witnessed at the battle of the Somme at Mametz Wood, where the Essex Yeomanry had been held in the rear ready to exploit the advance of the infantry. After a two-day bombardment the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry fresh from England were ordered forward to capture the wood - few returned. That night Marshall and a burial party dug shallow graves into which they rolled the bodies and covered them with a little mud. They then had to walk back over the graves.

Marshall was wounded in the hand in this action and after his recovery the Army considered he would not be able to handle a horse, so he volunteered for the Machine Gun Corps and was posted to the Leicestershire Yeomanry. His 21st birthday was spent in a derelict farmhouse being shelled while his gun crew melted ice for tea. He was there on 21 March 1918 when the Germans launched their "Big Push":

Had that first day of their advance been a success, the war would have been over before - but it wasn't. We were up and down, along the side of the woods - in the woods, out of the woods - on the move all the time. Had a shell burst then you'd have been done for. The pieces that flew off were red-hot when they exploded and they cut your arm or your head off - take your face off, your nose or your ear - anything.

At one point a shell landed close to him and he found himself sinking in thick mud. He managed to attract a search party by singing "Nearer, My God, to Thee".

The night before the Armistice he was in a factory in Lille and recalled how those around him were angry as they felt they had the Germans on the run. However after the Armistice they moved off and had only gone a few hundred yards when the factory, which had been booby-trapped, blew up. As Marshall recalled with a wry grin, "That would have been bloody ironic being blown up on Armistice Day."

With the war over Marshall received £50 for signing on for one year in the army of occupation. But after eight months, because of the increasing trouble in Ireland, he was sent to Dublin.

On leaving the Army he married his sweetheart Florence and both worked together for the Essex and Suffolk Hunt at Great Bromley Hall. This was to be a full-time job either hunting or caring for the horses. In 1926 during the General Strike, as the local policeman had been sent to the North, he worked as a special constable for the village. On the death of his employer he joined the staff of a Captain Mumford and worked again with horses.

In 1939 while he was clipping a mare a hair pierced his eye, complications set in and his eye was removed. During the Second World War he was in the local Home Guard and in 1940 he went to work in Ashtead, Surrey, for the Maples family, who had lost two sons in the First World War. He moved into the cottage that was to be his for the remainder of his life. He worked as a general maintenance man and again with horses. A Victorian at heart, he described his occupation as "Private Servant".

All his life he was involved with horses. He seldom called a vet because he made all his own medicines. In his early life he rarely spoke of the war or of the impact it had upon him, but in his nineties he joined the World War One Veterans' Association and, with its chairman Dennis Goodwin and a party of 16 other veterans, returned to Passchendaele for the 80th anniversary of the battle. In the next year he was presented with the Légion d'honneur by the French government.

In fine voice, in 2000 he sang trench songs at a concert in Rochester Cathedral and received a three-minute standing ovation. A few months ago he appeared in the Channel 4 documentary Britain's Boy Soldiers and was delighted when it won an award for the best factual documentary of 2004.

Max Arthur

Alfred Finnigan
September 18, 1896 - May 11, 2005
First World War veteran who saw action with the field artillery in France and northern Italy



AT HIS death on May 11 at the age of 108, Alfred Benjamin Finnigan was one of only 14 known British survivors of the First World War.
Although he reached the age of 18 within six weeks of the outbreak of war on August 4, 1914, he encountered some difficulty in joining up. He was only 5ft 3in tall and had a slight weakness in one eye. Nevertheless, he persisted and was accepted as a trainee driver in a six-horse gun-towing team by 2nd Battery the 6th (London) Royal Field Artillery Brigade. This was fortunate, because he was already devoted to horses, having gained some experience of them after emigrating as a boy with his family to Australia.



Despite his lack of height, he was wellbuilt and responded readily to military training. By the time he joined the 5th Infantry Division in France in September 1916 he had become the lead driver of a team of six, or occasionally eight, horses pulling an 18-pounder gun and ammunition limber with A Battery, 15 Brigade Royal Field Artillery.

After experiencing the rigours of the Somme offensive of 1916, the 5th Division had by the time he joined it moved north to new positions near Béthune and the La Bassée Canal. Movement of the artillery was frequently made by night to avoid detection by enemy observation aircraft or balloons; on one such occasion only a sudden glint of light on the water prevented Finnigan from leading his gun team into the canal.

The winter of 1916-17 brought exceptionally cold weather, making the acquisition of a pair of Canadian knee-high leather boots the ambition of Finnigan and his fellow gunners. If they were two or three sizes too large for the wearer, straw could be stuffed into the soles below two pairs of army socks and wrapped round the calves to keep out the cold. Straw stowed in the recess of their steel helmets also helped to retain body heat.

German counter-battery measures had proved remarkably effective since the beginning of the war on the Western Front, and British field artillery units had to move from one gun position to another, shortly after firing, so as not to be subjected to an almost immediate retaliatory bombardment.

Finnigan’s battery was caught on a curve of the Arras-Lens road near Neuville-St Vast and suffered serious casualties. Dead and gravely injured men and horses lay in front and behind him, yet his own gun team escaped unscathed, apart from his being struck on the helmet by a clod of earth thrown up by an exploding shell.

Together with the whole of the 5th Division, Finnigan’s battery was withdrawn from the Western Front to go to the assistance of the Italians, who fought on the side of Britain and France in the First World War. The journey by train through southern France and into northern Italy was a delight after the horrors of the mud and blood of Picardy.

The 5th Division’s destination, as with other British and French divisions sent to strengthen the Italian front, was the line of the River Piave running into the Adriatic northeast of Venice. Six German and nine Austrian divisions under General Otto von Below had inflicted a reverse on the Italians at Caporetto, but the front stabilised after the arrival of reinforcements.

In the period of comparative quiet which followed, Finnigan’s battery was ordered from GHQ not to tether their horses near acacia trees, abundant in the region, in the belief that acacia leaves were poisonous to horses. In reminiscences which cover his period of service in France and Italy, Finnigan recalled — seemingly with amusement — a number of orders from higher headquarters in response to complaints from troops at the front. One warned against disappointment on opening tins marked “pork and beans� and finding no pork apparent, “as the pork had been absorbed into the beans�.

The principal enemy action on the Italian front during the 5th Division’s service was by aerial bombardment. Finnigan’s battery was subjected to this on several occasions, but he was unharmed. After a move to Padua in March 1918, news was received of the impending German “spring offensive� in France, which was unleashed on March 21. The 5th Division was sent back to the cold and rain of northern France to play its part in stemming the enemy tide. The British Expeditionary Force, by then comprising five armies, held, but only at the cost of much ground particularly in the 5th Army sector. Finnigan’s battery was hotly engaged in halting the German advance on Hazebrouck northwest of Béthune.

After demobilisation, Finnigan was unable to find civilian employment and decided to return to Australia, but found conditions little better there. After seven years in various forms of short-term employment, he signed on as a deck hand aboard a three-masted sailing ship to work his passage home. While crossing the South Pacific for the Panama Canal, he was swept off the deck during a typhoon but managed to scramble back again by catching one of the lines running the length of the ship. He docked at Ostend on November 27, 1927, having qualified for his seaman’s ticket.

Together with other surviving First World War veterans, he was awarded the French Légion d’Honneur in 1998 and, both before and since then, appeared in a number of local and national TV interviews about his wartime service.

He married after his return from Australia but decided against having any children, declaring: “I am not prepared to produce cannon fodder for the army or for industry.�

His wife, Mary, predeceased him at the age of 97. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...629211,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...627533,00.html

May 26, 2005

Squadron Leader James Wagland
November 4, 1913 - April 2, 2005
Navigator whose pinpoint accuracy was crucial to landing and retrieving secret agents in Nazi-occupied Europe



AS A navigator involved in the operations of the RAF’s special duties squadrons from November 1942 until the end of the Second World War, James Wagland both planned and took part in dropping agents and supplies to resistance movements in German-occupied Europe. He was also involved in retrieving Resistance fighters and Special Operations Executive officers who were to be brought back to England for training or debriefing.
This type of flying required pinpoint accuracy from the navigators involved. There could be no “near misses� of the type inevitable in bomber operations. For both drops and pick-ups the aircraft had to locate discreet torch signals flashed up from hastily prepared landing sites in fields, by agents or Resistance fighters who had been informed by coded signals from London of the estimated time of arrival.



But even if their aircraft took off on time there were innumerable obstacles which might frustrate the mission: bad weather; enemy fighters; flak; or the inability of enemy agents to shake loose a Gestapo tail and make the rendezvous. In any of these cases the mission would have to be re-planned and rescheduled for another night.

Nevertheless, for three years the assorted aircraft of two squadrons — Nos 138 and 161, based at Tempsford, Bedforshire — rendered invaluable service in supporting the French Maquis’ sabotage and harassment operations, continuing until well after D-Day as the battle for Normandy increased in intensity. Wagland, whose qualities as a navigator had been marked while he was serving on a regular bomber squadron, played a crucial role with 138 and 161 throughout this period. For his services he was awarded two DFCs.

James Leslie William Wagland was born in West Ham in 1913 and went to school in Essex. On leaving school he joined a bank, but in the summer of 1939 he volunteered for the RAF. He completed his navigation training by August 1940 and was posted to a squadron of twin-engined Whitleys, No 78.

Wagland was soon honing his night navigation skills in early raids on Berlin and on a heroic attempt against the Fiat works in Turin. He had been awarded the DFC at the end of his tour of ops with 78 Squadron.

His exceptional capabilities as a bomber navigator had been gratefully remarked by experienced pilots. When two “special duties� squadrons were established at Tempsford, with the aim of furthering Churchill’s injunction to the SOE to “set Europe ablaze�, he was a natural candidate for the planning and navigation staff, which he joined in 1942 after a spell at Bomber Command HQ, soon to become senior navigator.

The squadrons’ aircraft were a mixed bag: Whitleys originally carried out the drops — later to be replaced by the four-engined Halifax. For pickups the single-engined high-wing army co-operation Lysander — short of a role since the defeat of the BEF in France — really came into its own, with its remarkable short take-off and landing performance. (It was later joined by the Hudson.) Since the Lysander’s navigation was done by the pilot, Wagland put a lot of effort into planning the courses to be flown, making the map reading as simple as possible.

He also flew as specialist navigator on numerous sorties, ranging from drops in Halifaxes as far afield as Norway and Poland, to landings in occupied France in Hudsons. There were plenty of nailbiting close shaves, with the ever-present fear of the Hudsons being ambushed by Gestapo or SS, as it waited in a clearing with engines running for its Resistance contacts to make their appearance.

One one occasion Wagland and his pilot were able to retrieve a member of their own squadron who had been a guest of the Maquis for a month after his Lysander had become enmired on landing. Among distinguished Frenchmen whom he brought over to England were two future Presidents of France, Vincent Auriol and François Mitterrand. Wagland was awarded a Bar to his DFC in September 1943.

At the end of the war, by which time he had also been twice mentioned in dispatches, Wagland was awarded the Dutch Flying Cross by the Queen of the Netherlands. He also received the Polish War Cross.

After the war he resumed his career in banking, becoming an assistant manager of Martin’s Bank in London and, after its takeover by Barclays in 1969, a member of the management of the Manufacturers Hanover Bank. He retired in 1974.

His wife Molly, who he married as a WAAF at Tempsford, died in 1919. He is survived by a son and daughter.



Squadron Leader James Wagland, DFC and Bar, wartime special duties navigator, was born on November 4, 1913. He died on April 2, 2005, aged 91.

From the Daily Telegraph of 24th May.

Major Tommy Pitman

Major Tommy Pitman, who has died aged 90, won an MC in Palestine in 1936 while serving with the 11th Hussars.

In September that year, the 11th Hussars were rushed to Palestine to help suppress the First Arab Revolt, and C Squadron was deployed in the northern area along the border with Lebanon. One afternoon, Pitman's troop was called out to support a platoon of the York and Lancashire Regiment that had been ambushed on the Acre-Safad road by an Arab force many times their number.

On arriving at the scene, Pitman found that three members of the platoon were dead, four were wounded and there was a man lying out in the open whom no one had been able to reach because of the intense Arab fire. Pitman ordered his armoured cars to give him maximum covering fire while he and a comrade tried to rescue the man.

The pair ran forward while bullets hummed around them like angry wasps and ricocheted off the boulders. They found the casualty, dressed his wounds and carried him back to safety. Pitman was awarded the MC and received the decoration from King George VI, who was Colonel-in-Chief of his regiment.

Thomas Islay Pitman was born on February 11 1915 in Edinburgh and educated at Eton before joining the 11th Hussars as a supplementary reserve officer. An excellent golfer, in 1934 he won the Southern Command and Army Championships.

After passing out of Sandhurst, Pitman was commissioned into the 11th Hussars and joined his regiment in Egypt. In July 1940, soon after the start of the Desert campaign, he was dropped behind the Italian lines to carry out a hazardous reconnaissance of the Tobruk-Bardia road.

His troop hid up during the day, but they were observed by Italian fighter-bombers and knocked out. Another troop was sent to look for him, but without success, and he was captured by the Italians while trying to walk back to the British lines. Pitman was incarcerated in a succession of PoW camps, the last of which was Fontanellato, near Parma.

In September 1943, after the Italians declared an Armistice, the prisoners were allowed to escape and scattered into the mountains. Pitman hid in a charcoal-burner's hut until the snow melted, but he was then recaptured by the Italian fascists and imprisoned at Perugia. He was in civilian clothes and had no identification. Many of his fellow prisoners were under sentence of death, and the fact that a few were taken out each day and never reappeared was a source of no little anxiety.

In May 1944, Pitman was moved to Camp VIB at Warburg, near Kassel. Despite ill treatment and spells in solitary confinement, he never missed an opportunity to remind his captors that they were losing the war. A fellow prisoner said afterwards that, but for Pitman's humour and fortitude, many of them would have perished in the bitterly cold winter.
Pitman was liberated by the Americans in April the following year and rejoined his regiment in Berlin to take command of C Squadron.

In April 1948 a Russian MiG fighter shot down a BEA plane bringing service families from London. The aircraft fell in the Russian Zone, and there were no survivors. C Squadron was ordered to surround the plane and deny the Russian forces access to it. After a stand-off lasting two days, the Russians retired.

Pitman was posted to RMA Sandhurst as an instructor. He subsequently took over Blenheim Company, which became Sovereign's Company, before he left in 1953 to return to his regiment. He commanded C Squadron in Malaya for a year. The Governor, Sir Henry Gurney, had recently been assassinated, and Pitman had the task of protecting visiting VIPs.

After a spell in Seremban as second-in-command, in 1958 Pitman retired from the Army and set up a malting business in North Yorkshire. He bred cattle and sheep and for many years enjoyed golf and shooting. For 10 years, he was chairman of the Northern Horse Show and raised substantial sums for paraplegic charities and for Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

Tommy Pitman died on March 26. He married, in 1948, Sheilah Westropp, the daughter of Major-General Victor Westropp; she survives him with their four daughters.

http://www.news.mod.uk

Great Boss, brilliant Officer and a pleasure to work for.

RIP Dave.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...644558,00.html

Sydney Hudson
August 1, 1910 - April 7, 2005
Special Operations Executive Agent who worked with the French Resistance and later established de-Nazification programmes



SYDNEY HUDSON’s first mission into wartime France for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) might have been his last, for he was betrayed and then arrested by the Vichy police — the despised Milice — and imprisoned. He escaped and later returned by parachute to France. As the war in Europe was drawing to a close he volunteered for operations of uncertain outcome in Japanese-held Thailand. A man of laconic humour, insatiable curiosity and intense interest in human relations, he turned his talents after the war to business and to politics, becoming involved in establishing the Social Democratic Party in Scotland.
Charles Sydney Hudson was the son of Theodore and Ella Hudson. Brought up near Montreux, Switzerland, where his father was a businessman, Hudson was a member of the British ski team at the 1936 Winter Olympics and took first place at the Swiss Amateur Open Golf Championships in 1939. At the outbreak of war, he came to England to enlist and was commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers.



By then France had fallen and when he found military life more regimental than he had expected in wartime, he answered a discreet invitation to fluent French speakers to undergo training for operations of a hazardous nature. He was parachuted into the Puy-de-Dôme, west of ClermontFerrand, in charge of a three-man team of agents code-named “Headmaster�. His task was to make contact with the local Resistance movement and guide its sabotage work, but he was arrested by the French police only two weeks after arrival.

Counting himself fortunate not to be handed over to the Gestapo, he was sent to a prison camp at Essye, near Toulouse, for dissidents actively opposed to the Vichy regime, where he remained until he and Baron Jean de Vomécourt — of the Resistance — organised a mass escape on January 3, 1944. Largely through the co-operation of one of the warders whom de Vomécourt had been able to compromise, about 50 prisoners got out. After making contact with the SOE circuit operating northeast of the Pyrenees, the party was led, in atrocious weather, into Spain. Once there it was relatively easy to go on to Gibraltar and England.

Hudson returned to France in May 1944 with a mission to re-establish the “Headmaster� circuit around Le Mans. Given the day-to-day expectation of the Allied landings in northern France, he and his 20-year-old colleague Sonya d’Artois were welcomed by the local Resistance and blew up the Le Mans telephone exchange, forcing the German Army to transmit by radio with its inevitable security risks. When the American 3rd Army under General George Patton reached Le Mans in August, the “Headmaster� circuit was on hand with local intelligence.

Recalled to England, Hudson volunteered for service with Force 136, the SOE arm in South-East Asia. In May 1945 he made his third parachute drop into enemy-held territory, this time into northern Thailand.

By then a lieutenant-colonel, he was in charge of a group — including Thais — with instructions to arm and train resistance fighters for operations against the Japanese but hold them in check until the time was right. His team trained selected local volunteers and, with the aid of 1,400 villagers, built a runway to receive Allied troops. But Japan’s surrender after the atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki rendered this unnecessary.

He was later involved in a second operation with Force 136 concerned with repatriation of Allied PoWs from Thailand. He thought that South-East Asia Command had been too hesitant about using Thai irregulars against the Japanese. A Foreign Office perception that the Siamese must work their passage — having been forced by the Japanese to side with them, at least ostensibly — was cited by Hudson as inhibiting Force 136 activity in Thailand.

He received the Croix de Guerre for his work in France and was awarded the DSO in 1945. He stayed on in South-East Asia, practically governing a province of Laos, until he was offered a post with the Allied Control Commission in Germany in 1947, where he helped to establish de-Nazification programmes in the mining areas of the Ruhr. This developed his fascination with industrial relations and in 1953 he joined the human resources division of Shell International, subsequently working in Israel, Gabon, Trinidad and the United States.

When faced with a Shell appointment to Vietnam in 1969, he opted instead for a post with the Bank of Scotland’s training and development department. This provided him with all the stimulus he needed up to retirement in 1980 in the East Lothian town of North Berwick. That is until the formation of the Social Democratic Party by the “Gang of Four� the following spring. He immediately threw himself into establishing the SDP in Scotland. As a former representative on the Scottish Council of the CBI and later chairman of CBI Scotland, his clout was considerable.

He was twice married and is survived by his German-born second wife, Ruth, and by a daughter of his first marriage.




Sydney Hudson, DSO, member of the wartime Special Operations Executive and businessman, was born on August 1, 1910. He died on April 7, 2005, aged 94.

Interesting jusposition in today's obi's. The first, an air hero of some renown and the second, an old lady who is a traitor of the highest order. The one who will be morned the most and sorely missed is below:

Flight Lieutenant Ray Holmes
(Filed: 29/06/2005)

Flight Lieutenant Ray Holmes, who died on Monday aged 90, delivered the coup de grace to a German Dornier 17 bomber near Buckingham Palace in one of the most celebrated episodes during the Battle of Britain.
The German bomber had taken off from France at 10am on Sunday September 15 1940, which is now regarded as the climax of the battle. After joining up with a formation at 15,000 ft it headed for central London, its crew avoiding RAF fighters when crossing the coastline near Dungeness; then an engine started to malfunction, and the bomber dropped behind the main force. As it neared its target it came under concentrated attack from fighters near Battersea. It was set on fire by Hurricanes of 310 (Czech) Squadron; and two of the crew baled out.
Holmes, a sergeant at the time, then appeared on the scene to deliver a further attack, causing the Dornier to break up, and forcing the German pilot to bale out. A large piece of the bomber fell in the forecourt of Victoria Station, a scene depicted - with considerable artistic licence - in the film Battle of Britain. The stone façade of the station bore the scars for more than 40 years.
Afterwards, Holmes stated that his aircraft had hit something during the attack, and he was forced to bale out over Chelsea. On landing in Hugh Street, he was told by onlookers that his enemy had crashed at Victoria. He was led to the Orange Brewery 100 yards down Pimlico Road for a swift brandy before being dispatched to Chelsea Barracks. Following a visit to an Army doctor and then the mess for a few more drinks and a bit of warranted line-shooting, a taxi took him back No 504 Squadron at RAF Hendon.
The attack, during which Buckingham Palace was bombed, captured the imagination of the public and subsequent historians.
Last year archaeologists unearthed parts of Holmes's Hurricane for a Channel 5 television documentary, in which Holmes visited the site near Buckingham Palace Road and was shown the fighter's control column or "joy-stick" which he had last held 64 years earlier.
Appropriately, the firing button was still set to "FIRE". The aircraft's engine was recovered, and it is now displayed at the Imperial War Museum.
The son of a journalist, Raymond Towers Holmes was born on August 20 1914 at Wallasey, Cheshire. He attended Calday Grange Grammar School, West Kirby, where he excelled at cricket and rugby, then became a crime reporter. He joined the RAFVR as an airman pilot in 1937 and trained at Prestwick and Barton in Lancashire.
Holmes went to No 504 Squadron at Wick in June 1940. The squadron flew south to Hendon in early September, and it was soon involved in some of the heaviest fighting of the Battle of Britain.
After he was commissioned in June 1941, 'A' Flight of No 504 became No 81 Squadron at Leconfield, East Riding, and the pilots were kitted out for an unknown destination. They flew to Glasgow, and embarked in the aircraft carrier Argus, which carried crated Hurricanes. On September 1, the squadron flew off in groups and landed at Vaenga airfield near Murmansk, northern Russia. Operations were flown until November, when Holmes and his fellow pilots taught Russians to fly the fighters. In December the RAF contingent sailed for England, leaving the Hurricanes and their equipment for the Russian Air Force.
After returning home, Holmes spent the next two years training student pilots before he went back to operations, flying high-altitude Spitfires with No 541 photographic reconnaissance squadron at Benson. During this period he acted as a courier, carrying papers for Winston Churchill when he was preparing for the Potsdam Conference.
Holmes left the RAF in November 1945, having been mentioned in dispatches and given the Air Efficiency Award.
After the war Holmes turned down a suggestion that he become an airline pilot, and returned to journalism in Liverpool, where he established his own agency which specialised in court reporting.
He also took agricultural photographs in colour when the technology was in its infancy, retaining his own laboratories for processing and working closely with Kodak, which was impressed with his innovative ideas. But eventually he could not keep up both journalism and photography, and opted for the former.
Taking notes with a fountain pen in perfect shorthand, Holmes became a father figure at Liverpool crown court, teaching young reporters the proper way to bow before a judge. After retiring at 80, he maintained a keen interest in journalism while devoting time to golf, woodwork and gardening. He wrote an autobiography, Sky Spy (1989).
In 2004 the Wirral Borough Council bestowed the Freedom of the Borough on Holmes, the chief executive stating that he could "think of no one upon whom this honour could have been more fittingly bestowed".
On the day Holmes died, flags flew at half-mast in his honour in the Wirral, and his widow received a message from Buckingham Palace expressing the Queen's sadness on hearing of his death.
Raymond Holmes married Elizabeth Killip in April 1941. After her death he married, in 1966, Anne Holmes, who survives him with two daughters from his first marriage, and a son and daughter from his second.

What a lad!

What a damn shame. There will be a dig on the Aircraft Ray shot down next month , as a follow up to his Hurricane recovery , paid for by Channel 5 again. A pity he won't see it.

RIP Sergeant Holmes.

Ray Holmes
August 20, 1914 - June 27, 2005
Intrepid airman who rammed a German bomber over London to ensure it did not attack Buckingham Palace

IN ONE of the celebrated episodes of the Battle of Britain, sergeant pilot Ray Holmes became something of an overnight hero when he rammed a Dornier bomber over London to prevent it, as he had reason to believe, from dropping its bombs on Buckingham Palace. On the morning of September 15, 1940, Holmes had taken off from Hendon with other Hurricane pilots of 504 Squadron, to intercept a formation of 36 Dornier Do17s which had been reported to be closing in on Central London.

Acting as tail-end Charlie for his squadron, Holmes was keeping a weather eye open for German fighters as the aircraft approached the German bombers. He attacked two Dorniers, seriously damaging the first and causing its crew to bale out. The second sheered off as he fired at it. A third Dornier appeared to Holmes to be making directly for Buckingham Palace, but as he lined up on it — aiming to shoot through its cockpit window in a head-on attack — and pressed his gun button, the hiss from his breechblocks told him that he had run out of ammunition.

Holmes made the split second decision to prevent the enemy reaching its objective by ramming the Dornier, aiming to clip the left hand edge of its twin-rudder tailplane with his left wing. In fact he sliced the whole tailplane off and the Dornier, with its outer wings also ripped off by the violence of the impact, plunged to earth in the forecourt of Victoria station. As Holmes later recalled of the impact: “There was a bit of a bump but nothing much. I thought I had got away with it. But immediately the plane went into a spiral dive and I couldn’t pull out of it.�

Holmes took to his parachute at a desperately low 350ft and came down by the side of a house on Ebury Bridge Road, ending up with his parachute lines snagged on a drainpipe, suspended comically over a dustbin in the back garden. “I undid the parachute and stepped out. There were two girls in the next garden, so I vaulted over the fence and kissed them both,� he recalled.

Meanwhile, his Hurricane had crashed in Buckingham Palace Road at 400mph, burying itself many feet below the surface. The Dornier pilot had managed to bale out but subsequently died in hospital from his injuries. Mercifully, there were no casualties on the ground from either the Dornier or the Hurricane crash.

Holmes was taken by rescuers to the Orange Brewery in Pimlico Road, where he was steadied with a fortifying brandy before being taken to Chelsea Barracks, where he was checked over by an army medical officer. Thereafter, he was returned by taxi to RAF Hendon, where it was “business as usual� .

Raymond T. Holmes (always known as “Arty� because of his initials), was born and raised on the Wirral, where he was educated at Wallasey and Calday Grange grammar schools.

After leaving school he went into journalism, beginning work as a reporter on the Birkenhead Advertiser. He was also one of the early recruits to the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, joining it in 1936 as its 55th volunteer and completing his aircrew training. By the time the Second World War broke out he was already an experienced pilot, and he joined 504 (City of Nottingham) Squadron, flying Hurricanes.

As it happened, the intense airfighting over London on September 15, 1940, marked the virtual culmination of the Battle of Britain. Thereafter the German bomber offensive continued at night.

When Fighter Command went on to the offensive in the spring of 1941, Holmes flew fighter sweeps over occupied France. Subsequently he was sent to Murmansk to instruct Soviet airmen in the Hurricanes that were being delivered to them via the Arctic convoys, also escorting Soviet bombers on air raids over German occupied territory. On his return from Russia, he qualified as an instructor and spent two years at the Central Flying School.

Later in the war he specialised in photographic reconnaissance, joining 541 Squadron and flying high-altitude Spitfires over Germany to get high resolution pictures of targets. Such missions took him to the Ruhr, Berlin and Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden. Towards the end of the war he was flying dispatches for Winston Churchill as King’s Messenger. He had in the meantime been commissioned, and he ended the war with the rank of flight lieutenant.

Demobilised in October 1945, he resumed his prewar career in journalism, specialising in agricultural photography and developing colour photographs in his own lab. He also had his own news agency which concentrated on covering Liverpool law courts for local and national newspapers.

As it happened, Holmes had not seen the last of his trusty Hurricane. After many years of research to pinpoint the remains of the aircraft, an excavation was carried out in Buckingham Palace Road in May last year, and parts of the Hurricane were recovered, the latter part of the operation being shown live on television. The remnants were given on loan to the Imperial War Museum, but parts of the engine casing that had been shattered beyond effective restoration were used to cast some miniature Hurricane sculptures, one of which was presented to its pilot.

A supremely modest man, Holmes lived life to the full, and was playing tennis well into his eighties. He was granted the freedom of the Wirral last year.

Holmes is survived by his wife, Anne, by their son and daughter, and by two daughters of his first marriage to Elizabeth, who died in 1964.

Ray Holmes, Battle of Britain fighter pilot, was born on August 20, 1914. He died on June 27, 2005, aged 90.

particularly liked the part where he vaulted the garden fence to kiss the girls an old school hero