Judge Advocate General who in his early legal career devised a novel defence for one of the Kray twins
James Stuart-Smith held every military judicial appointment from legal assistant to the Judge Advocate General of the Armed Forces. He was the last person holding that office who was promoted through the ranks of the military judiciary. After his retirement the Judge Advocate General became an external appointment.
In his early days in the office of the Judge Advocate General, Stuart-Smith was the junior legal assistant to whom all the small administrative jobs were delegated. He was involved with such things as who should pay bills from Ede and Ravenscroft for judicial robes; what the equivalent military rank was for each grade of military judiciary; and whether staff cars containing judge advocates should have starred plates and flags. By the end of his career he was a trusted adviser to the Secretary of State and he oversaw a system often dealing with the most serious crimes.
James Stuart-Smith was born in Brighton in 1919. His father owned livery stables and was the first manager of the Southdown bus company. James attended Brighton College and then went to the London Hospital as a medical student. On the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and saw active service in Italy, Egypt and Palestine. He was promoted lieutenant colonel in 1946, aged 27. A successful military career beckoned but he opted instead for the law. He was called to the Bar at Middle Temple in 1948 and practised as a barrister from 1948 to 1955.
Early in his legal career he defended one of the Kray twins (not yet as notorious as they would become) who was alleged to have been acting alone in a criminal enterprise. He persuaded the jury that, since no one could say conclusively whether the crime had been committed by the defendant or by his identical twin, it could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty. Acquittal duly ensued.
After seven years of independent practice, Stuart-Smith joined the office of the Judge Advocate General as a legal assistant in 1955 and quickly came to the notice of the then Judge Advocate General, Sir Frederick Gentle, QC. Gentle felt that both his approach and his extensive knowledge of the Army equipped him well for the duties of a judge advocate. Stuart-Smith was appointed Deputy Judge Advocate in 1957 and Assistant Judge Advocate General in 1968, serving overseas as the senior judge advocate in the Middle East command from 1964 to 1965 and in Germany from 1976 to 1979. He became the Vice Judge Advocate General in 1981. On his promotion to Judge Advocate General in 1986 he was appointed CB and in 1988 Queen’s Counsel Emeritus. He retired in 1991 at the age of 72, having served as a military judge for 36 years.
In the 1990s Stuart-Smith successfully campaigned for a Second World War memorial at his old school to include the name of a prewar German pupil called Guhl, who had returned to his homeland in 1939 and been killed on active service.
In 1957 he married Jean Groundsell who predeceased him. He is survived by a son and daughter.
James Stuart-Smith, CB, Judge Advocate General, was born on September 13, 1919. He died on May 15, 2013, aged 93
Skipper of the destroyer Glamorgan in the thick of the Falklands conflict
From Chief Cadet Captain at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, to captaincy of the guided-missile destroyer Glamorgan in the 1982 Falklands conflict, Mike Barrow, a man with a rugby forward’s build and a wide smile, was universally admired for his integrity, insistence on high standards, professional thoroughness and “firm but fair” leadership style. In conditions of extreme stress while under Argentine attack off the Falkland Islands, Barrow’s composure and calmness were notably reassuring to his people. “The captain is a tower of strength, he always looks so calm and collected,” recorded a shipmate.
On the second day of the Falklands campaign, Glamorgan, with the frigates Arrow and Alacrity, was instructed to bombard Port Stanley airfield. They were attacked with bombs by the Argentine Air Force, which, luckily, missed. Thereafter a demanding pattern comprised bombardments by night, a rush away at dawn to form the protective screen around the vital aircraft carriers Invincible and Hermes, and several special operations. Among these last was gunfire support for the bold attack by the Special Air Service, which destroyed ten aircraft on Pebble Island airstrip in East Falkland, and a spoofing operation designed to mislead Argentine land forces about the venue for the invasion.
On June 12, two days before the Argentine surrender, Glamorgan was hit at dawn by a land-based Exocet missile fired from near Port Harriet. A previously unsuccessful firing had warned the British about this tactic and lines defining the danger area were drawn on charts. In order to give further gunfire support to 45 Commando Royal Marines in their difficult attack on the Two Sisters feature, Barrow had held on a little longer than planned. The Exocet just reached Glamorgan as she turned evasively away, hitting the corner of the flight deck and hanger, destroying the helicopter, starting a large fire and killing 13 men.
One of these was the captain’s secretary and Flight Deck Officer, Lieutenant David Tinker whose father subsequently published his son’s poignant poetry and letters, decrying the waste and wickedness of war. His book A Message From the Falklands (Penguin) was widely read.
Barrow was awarded the DSO.
The son of a naval captain, his early career followed a conventional pattern with service mainly in destroyers in various parts of the world but including a tour in the Royal Yacht Britannia in 1954-56 and subsequently a post as Flag Lieutenant to the Commodore, Hong Kong.
He then had an unusual number of commands; the minesweepers Caunton and Laleston and the frigates Mohawk, Torquay and Diomede and then second-in-command at Dartmouth. Promoted to captain in 1974, he was deputy director of recruiting in the Admiralty and assistant chief of staff (operations) to the Nato commander Allied Naval Forces Southern Europe.
Having been an ADC to the Queen and a Gentleman Usher to her Majesty he was appointed CVO in 2002.
He is survived by his wife, Judith, and their two sons and daughter.
Captain Michael Barrow, CVO, DSO, sailor, was born on May 21, 1932. He died on April 28, 2013, aged 80
Officer in de Gaulle’s Free French forces who fought in a number of campaigns and was twice in opposition to his countrymen
The death of General Pierre Langlois recalls two Second World War campaigns in which the Free French forces of General Charles de Gaulle fought those of the Vichy French. Langlois took part in both as a junior officer and also in operations against Axis forces in the Western Desert and the German Army in France, the latter winning him the accolade of Compagnon de la Libération.
A career officer and graduate of St-Cyr, Pierre Langlois was spared involvement in the Battle of France following the German onslaught in May 1940, as he was serving in the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion (13th DBLE) with the Anglo-French force in Norway.
The Allies’ motives for landing in Norway were mixed. Although ostensibly intended as a move in support of the Finns resisting Soviet invasion, Britain also planned to block the export of Swedish iron ore through Narvik to Germany, while France sought to switch the threat from her eastern frontier to Scandinavia. Germany moved first and occupied Oslo and the main ports.
Langlois was a company officer with the 13th DBLE when its two battalions crossed Rombaks Fjord in a move to drive the Germans out of Narvik. Striking hard at the centre of the enemy positions, the operation initially looked promising, but when Luftwaffe attacks forced the naval vessels providing air and gunfire support to withdraw, the legionnaires were in serious trouble. Then, with the collapse of French and British resistance in France, Paris and London decided to cancel the Norway operation and order a withdrawal.
Extraction of the Allied ground and naval forces from various points on the Norwegian coast was conducted under the difficult circumstances of German local air supremacy. Langlois reached England in June, his arrival coinciding with the fall of France. He unhesitatingly threw in his lot with de Gaulle’s Free French, as did almost half of the 2,000 men of 13th DBLE.
Langlois next took part in the Allied operation intended to persuade the Vichy French forces in the port of Dakar on the Atlantic coast of Senegal to switch their allegiance to de Gaulle. It was a sound strategic aim but operations came perilously close to farce. Evelyn Waugh, who took part with the 101st Royal Marines Brigade, whimsically recounted the Battle of Dakar of September 1940 in his Men at Arms (1952).
The commander of the British task force, which included two battleships, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and 8,000 British and Free French troops, had instructions to negotiate a peaceful occupation. When the French Governor declined, shellfire was exchanged, warships were damaged and lives lost. De Gaulle, observing from one of the troopships, decided against Frenchmen killing Frenchmen and accepted a less than glorious withdrawal.
Better fortune favoured Langlois when he accompanied the 13th DBLE to Eritrea in March 1941 when British, French and Indian troops defeated substantial Italian forces attempting to gain control of the territory. This had barely been achieved when the 13th DBLE was ordered to join the British and Free French invasion of Vichy-controlled Syria, perceived susceptible to a German thrust through the Caucasus following Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union.
As at Dakar, it was hoped that the Vichy French garrison in Syria and Lebanon would not resist the predominantly British Commonwealth invading force, but a substantial Free French element under General Gentilhomme was added to help to establish confidence. The inclusion of the 13th DBLE, however, posed a risk of Legionnaires fighting Legionnaires as four battalions of the 6th Regiment of the Foreign Legion featured in the Vichy order-of-battle.
The Vichy High Commissioner for the Levant, M. Henri Dentz, made plain he would not allow a walkover and bitter fighting followed. The mature and experienced Foreign Legionnaires on both sides gave good accounts of themselves. Langlois was wounded for a second time before Allied pressure prevailed and an armistice was signed on July 12. This allowed British occupation of Lebanon and Syria, while the French troops who had decided against joining de Gaulle were shipped home to France.
In October 1942, Langlois fought in the battle of Alamein with the 2nd Free French Brigade and later through Tunisia to the end of the war in Africa. In August 1944 he served with the 1st Free French division when it was assigned to the US 7th Army for the invasion of southern France. Langlois, by then a company commander, saw action in the pursuit of German forces withdrawing up the Rhône valley, in the Vosges, Alsace and finally in the Massif de l’Authion. He completed the war with a fine fighting record but his active service was not over.
The war in Indo-China erupted even before the Japanese surrender in South-East Asia and the 13th DBLE was sent to join the campaign against the Viet Minh, as the rebels were then known. He was serving on the staff in Indo-China in May 1954 and so avoided capture when the 13th DBLE positions at Dien Bien Phu were overrun.
Subsequently, he commanded the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Regiment of the Legion, served on the staff in Algeria, was promoted brigadier-general in 1966 and major-general four years later. As a lieutenant-general he was the military governor of Metz and also served as a member of the Council of Defence in Paris. On retiring from the Army in 1977 he was appointed to the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour.
He is survived by his wife, Colette, and two daughters.
Lieutenant-General Pierre Langlois, French soldier, was born on March 16, 1917. He died on May 16, 2013, aged 96
Zdenek Skarvada
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Courageous Czech airman who fought the Nazis above Britain but was later persecuted in his homeland
As the Royal Air Force struggled to defend Britain in the early years of the Second World War, it could count on an exceptional group of battle-hardened and highly courageous pilots exiled from Poland and Czechoslovakia. Zdenek Skarvada was one of the last of them. Trained in the Czechoslovak Air Force, he fled his country as the Germans invaded in March 1939, and joined the Polish Air Force to fight German and Soviet forces as Poland was invaded at the start of the Second World War. Among his close flying companions was Josef Frantisek, another Czech who became one of the top RAF aces in the Battle of Britain.
Skarvada, who was detained for a time by Soviet forces, made his way to Britain and the RAF by a circuitous route via Odessa, Istanbul, Port Said and Bombay, eventually arriving in Liverpool in 1940. He was too late for the Battle of Britain, but was soon flying Hurricanes and then Spitfires on coastal patrols with RAF 310 squadron.
In 1942 he was forced to bale out into the sea after engine trouble near the Isles of Scilly and was picked up by a German vessel and taken to the Continent, where he spent the rest of the war in PoW camps. His situation was perilous, as the Nazis had at one stage proposed that those from German-occupied countries who took up arms against them should be treated as traitors and shot for treason if captured.
Fortunately this threat was in most cases not carried out. Skarvada survived the war, including a spell in the notorious Stalag Luft III (scene of The Great Escape). He also survived a punishing “death march” at the end of the war as the camps were evacuated and prisoners were force-marched long distances with very little food. He was liberated by US forces near Schwerin.
Skarvada was born in 1917 in Olesnice in Moravia in what was then the moribund Austro-Hungarian empire. He had always been passionate about flying and, aged 17, he joined a military flying academy, qualifying as a pilot in 1937. This was a deeply frustrating time for Skarvada and his comrades, however. Czechoslovak armed forces were mobilised in 1938 and then stood down when the Munich Agreement compelled Czechoslovakia to cede vital territory to Germany. And in March 1939 the Nazis occupied the Czech lands without resistance from Czechoslovak forces. It was left to individuals to decide to escape their occupied homeland and fight Nazism from abroad.
After the defeat of Nazism Skarvada, promoted to captain in the Czechoslovak Air Force, began to train a new generation of fighter pilots. However, his assumption that “everything would be peaceful” in a restored democratic state proved very wrong when the Communist Party seized power in Prague in 1948. Those who had served with British forces were regarded by the communists as tainted by association with the “imperialist West”. Skarvada was demoted, dismissed from his Air Force training role, had his flat confiscated and was forced to work for 20 years as a miner. He reflected that he was fortunately “just the sort of nature that can bear even hard blows”. He needed anyway to provide for his wife and two sons.
There was limited rehabilitation for former RAF pilots in the 1960s as Stalinist attitudes faded. But the former pilots still had to meet more or less clandestinely during the communist regime. Only after the revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989 could their role begin to be acknowledged. Skarvada was eventually honoured for his wartime service with promotion to the rank of brigadier-general by Czech President Vaclav Havel in 2000.
It was a bittersweet time for Skarvada and his surviving colleagues who had endured so much in decades of communist persecution. “Forty years can never be put back,” he said. “My boys weren’t able to do what they wanted, my wife wasn’t able to do what she wanted, I wasn’t able to do what I wanted, but anyhow, we survived.”
But he took great pleasure in educating younger generations about the Czech pilots’ wartime role. He worked with the makers of an international film about the pilots, Dark Blue World, and published an autobiography linked to his wartime experiences and bale-out entitled Keep Floating! He was still flying planes into his eighties.
Zdenek Skarvada, Czech and RAF airman, was born on November 8, 1917. He died on May 11, 2013, aged 95
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British soldier who helped to stimulate the wartime resistance movement in Italy
Until the armistice of September 1943 by which Italy changed sides in the Second World War, the Special Operations Executive (SOE) had regarded Italy as barren soil for stimulation of subversion and sabotage. The emergence of anti-fascist groups in the northern part of the country, still being skilfully contested by the withdrawing German Army, changed the situation dramatically. By the end of the campaign in April 1945, the Resistance groups rivalled those of France.
In the final few months leading up to the Eighth Army’s break-in to the valley of the Po, Allied concern focused on encouraging the partisans in preventing the enemy carrying out “scorched earth” policies that would impede both the Allies’ advance and the recovery of the economy of the north. In the north east, hostility between communist and nationalist partisan groups rendered cohesion difficult; in the Ligurian north west where Robert Bentley eventually arrived, the situation was dominated by the German 34th Infantry division with no commitments other than to carry out rastrellamenti (murderous raids, mass arrests and house-to-house searches) against the partisans.
No 1 Special Force controlling SOE operations in the peninsula first instructed Bentley to join Lieutenant-Colonel Peter McMullen’s “Saki” mission in Liguria from southern France, where SOE had a firm foothold. Forced back by the Alpine winter, Bentley had to settle for the obvious risks of taking his sub-mission in by sea, landing at his fourth attempt near Bordighera on the south-east facing coast of the Gulf of Genoa.
This placed him a significant distance from the partisan leader with whom he planned to make contact: one “Curto”, a known communist and an effective leader operating along the Franco-Italian border but desperately short of weapons. It was Bentley’s first priority to find Curto and arm his guerillas either by sea or air drop.
Reaching Curto’s area of operations gave Bentley serious difficulties, owing to the close attention the 34th Division paid to the beach areas and immediate hinterland. The expected guide was not at the landing place, a nearby safe house proved to be known to the enemy, and his party was obliged to crawl or scuttle past checkpoints wearing borrowed civilian overcoats led by guides he was able to recruit by his force of personality.
The Ligurian people were generally keen to help but the reprisals and burning of villages during the German rastrellamenti had made them extremely cautious. Having landed on January 6, 1945, it was not until February that Bentley was able to link up with Curto and his partisans and March before he managed to arrange the first drop of arms. Even then the partisans were piteously short of food and medicines, in consequence their morale was at best precarious. Keeping alive dominated their thoughts rather than harassing the enemy.
Recognising that airdrops in the hills were easily detected by the enemy and the time taken to collect the parachute containers involved the partisans in serious risk of capture and death, Bentley resolved to attempt resupply by sea. Two coast landings had to be abandoned owing to failure to establish contact between ship and shore and only one was accomplished after Bentley had made his way back through the German checkpoints to supervise the landing personally.
Better weather in the mountains favoured return to air resupply and sufficient arms had been dropped to the Ligurian partisans for them to make a positive effort to coincide with the Eighth Army’s advance into the Po Valley in April.
As the overall German collapse intensified, the 34th Division moved north-eastwards towards the Brenner Pass with such speed that the partisans had to move quickly to take advantage. Genoa and the main towns were occupied after only sporadic fighting and Bentley was able to report back to No 1 Special Force HQ, “Great welcome everywhere and anti-scorch (earth) most successful.”
The only embarrassments he also felt obliged to report were the activities of French troops who had landed in the south of France with the US 7th Army and crossed the Franco-Italian frontier intent on exacting revenge for the Italian advance on Nice in 1940.
The citation for Bentley’s Military Cross praised his determination, outstanding leadership and courage. Before joining SOE in 1944, he had served with the Eighth Army in North Africa and was commissioned into the General Service Corps. A gifted linguist, on demobilisation in 1946 he read Science at the University of California before starting work with the Bank of America.
Subsequently, he joined Pacific National before eventually returning to England to join the Manufacturers Bank of which he became a vice-president. On his retirement he lived in Provence until finally returning to England in 1994.
In 1970 he married Susan Balderson who survives him. There were no children.
Captain Robert Bentley, MC, SOE veteran of the Italian campaign, was born on December 20, 1922. He died on March 3, 2013, aged 90
