Wartime reconnaissance officer whose job was to seize German intelligence before it could be destroyed
Bobby Fachiri, as he was invariably known, was a member of Target Force (T-Force) that had its origins in the Royal Navy’s No 30 Assault Unit formed early in the Second World War. The purpose of this unit — based on a system used by German field intelligence units during their invasion of Greece and capture of Crete — was to move with or even ahead of leading ground troops to seize intelligence material before it could be destroyed. In the final weeks of the war in Europe, T-Force used this technique for the appropriation of cutting-edge German technology — and the scientists working on it — before they were snatched by the Russians.
Fachiri commanded the reconnaissance platoon of 5th Battalion The King’s Regiment that was assigned to T-Force in February 1945, although the unit had been on the Continent since the Normandy landings where Fachiri had distinguished himself while in charge of the battalion’s anti-tank guns.
At the end of April, his section, mounted in Humber light reconnaissance cars, and “B” Company of 5th King’s crossed the River Elbe to join the 11th Armoured Division as it advanced north-eastwards towards Lübeck. Fachiri had orders to move with the leading elements of the division and as soon as an opportunity occurred race ahead and seize the air and naval research station at Travemünde and prevent the destruction of experimental equipment.
After crossing the River Elbe on May 3 the density of military traffic led Fachiri to fix the sign “Priority T-Force XXX Corps” on his leading car to provide the priority he needed. Even so, he reached Travemünde to find the leading elements of XXX Corps already leaving the town that was thronged with refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army, together with some 4,000 German troops anxious to surrender to the British. His first task was to clear the road to the research station ferry and close it behind him with a guard of his own men.
Aware of his acute shortage of manpower, he armed 20 French former prisoners of war with surrendered German weapons and took them with him to guard the research station and prevent sabotage of equipment or installations. On return to the town by ferry, he charged the head of the local civil police with responsibility for directing the refugees and surrendering troops to where they could be housed and fed.
The arrival of a battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment allowed Fachiri to divest himself of responsibility for keeping order in the town and concentrate on taking over the Blohm and Voss flying boat factory and the submarine repair base, both of which were still occupied by German troops. He arrived at the submarine base headquarters to find a group of 30 German officers with a clerk sitting at a desk behind them ready to type out an instrument of surrender.
With the experimental and seaplane base secure, he put the senior German officer in charge of organising their continued security. Examination of the facilities revealed sufficient material and parts for the construction of 150 aircraft, an almost completed Type XXI U-boat and a partly damaged, but under repair, 250-ton closed cycle experimental submarine.
In the course of the next few days until the formal German surrender on May 8 (VE Day), the security of the aircraft factory was taken over by a unit of the RAF Regiment and the submarine base by the Royal Navy, leaving Fachiri and his reconnaissance section free to return to 5th King’s. He subsequently received the Military Cross for his outstanding initiative and prompt action in potentially hostile circumstances without regard for his own safety.
Robert Fachiri came from a family of cotton traders based in Liverpool’s Sefton Park. He was educated at Liverpool College and worked in the city’s Cotton Market until the outbreak of war, when he enlisted in the Royal Artillery, eventually to be commissioned in the King’s Regiment (Liverpool).
After demobilisation in 1946 he worked for some years for the Bank of England in Liverpool before starting his own insurance broking firm. He was also an accomplished amateur artist until turning professional in 1967. Subsequently, his pictures were widely sold all over the world and three hang in the Bank of England.
He married Betty Lord in 1939 but she died in 1948. The following year he married Mary Beardmore who also predeceased him. He is survived by a son and a daughter of his first marriage and a son and two daughters of his second.
Captain Robert Fachiri, MC, soldier, businessman and artist, was born on August 4, 1919. He died on March 18, 2012 aged 92
Wartime submarine captain in the Far East awarded the DSC for his prowess at sinking Japanese vessels
Peter Angell was the son of a gallant First World War officer, Lieutenant-Colonel John Angell, DSO, MC, and Juliet Angell (neé Jolly), and after being educated at Christ’s Hospital School was commissioned as a special entry cadet into the Royal Navy in 1937.
After a year’s training at Dartmouth Naval College, he was at sea in the cruiser Southampton when war broke out. In May 1940, in company with many other young officers, he found himself detailed off to command a small vessel evacuating troops under fire from the beaches of Dunkirk to larger ships offshore.
He subsequently joined the battlecruiser Hood, flagship of the celebrated Force H under Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville, and witnessed the necessary but always to be regretted neutralisation by gunfire of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir on July 3, 1940.
Angell volunteered for submarines and having qualified in the depot ship Forth, was allocated in the rank of lieutenant to the submarine Trident in June 1941. Trident, with the Tigris, executed a successful minor campaign in Norwegian waters which seriously worried the German high command. In September he was given the responsible job of British liaison officer to the Polish submarine Sokol, the ex-British Urchin, supporting her captain during two adventurous Mediterranean war patrols, General Sikorsky personally decorating Boris Karnicki with the Virtuti Militari.
After a brief period as second-in-command of the Seawolf and having passed the exacting submarine commanding officer’s course when aged 23, he was appointed captain of the training submarine H34 for three months. From April 1943 to March 1945 he was captain of the newly built submarine Sea Rover, arriving in February 1944 at Trincomalee in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from which base he undertook five war patrols between March and September in the Malacca Strait, off Sumatra, Burma and Penang.
The decreasing availability of targets as the Japanese were driven north-east by the Americans caused a move to Fremantle, Western Australia, and two more patrols in the Flores and Java Seas. Given the paucity of targets at this stage in the war, Angell accumulated a creditable score. With torpedoes and gunfire he sank nine and damaged a further two Japanese vessels and was awarded the DSC. Sea Rover returned home for refit in November 1944.
His final wartime post involved accepting the surrender of German U-boats at Londonderry. After the war a series of fairly mundane appointments culminated in a tour in the large aircraft carrier Eagle during the Suez crisis of 1956 and a final desk job in the equipment procurement division of the Admiralty.
In 1959 Angell took advantage of the generous redundancy scheme, known as the “Golden Bowler”, and retired from the Royal Navy. Moving to East Sussex, he became a farmer, growing crops and keeping cows, pigs, chickens, geese and ducks. He was in his element and even found time to turn out for the cricket team in the nearby village of Blackboys. Following a divorce from his first wife, Kathleen Biggs, he married Edwina Thompson.
Another change of career followed his move to Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, when he took up the appointment of Clerk to the Board of Conservators and Forest Superintendent, a post that he held from 1965 to 1984. The chairman summed up his 19 years of service by saying: “If it had not been for Peter Angell there would be no Ashdown Forest Management Plan, no Ashdown Forest Centre and no appeal, raising almost £1 million.” His dedication and success was recognised when he was appointed MBE.
In the City of London the Angell family had been connected with the Clothworkers’ Company since 1724, and in 1985 he followed in the footsteps of six ancestors by becoming Master of the Clothworkers’ Company. During his tenure he oversaw a much needed refurbishment programme to renovate Clothworkers’ Hall, which had been built during the postwar period after its predecessor was destroyed during the Blitz. Angell was a member of the Samuel Pepys Club (who was also a former Master of the Clothworkers’ Company) and was for several years its chairman.
On retirement he moved to Little Cheverell in Wiltshire where he enjoyed playing golf and the company of his grandchildren. Both wives predeceased him; he is survived by Mary, the daughter of the first marriage, and by two step-daughters.
Lieutenant-Commander Peter Angell, MBE, DSC, wartime submarine captain and former Master of the Clothworkers’ Company, was born on October 7, 1919. He died on February 18, 2012, aged 92
