Tony Curtis
Actor who rose from the New York ghetto to achieve cinematic immortality in Some Like It Hot
During the Second World War Curtis joined the US Navy straight from school and served in a submarine tender, USS Proteus, in the Far East. He was wounded in the Pacific campaign and at the end of the war witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay in September 1945.
After the Royal Naval College, then at Eaton Hall, his first ship was the cruiser Leander; in 1947 he witnessed the incident at Corfu in which two British destroyers were mined by the Albanian communist government. It was in Leander that he also selected his future honeymoon destination, a taverna in then unspoilt Paleokastritsa, where he dined on lobster and local wine for 6d (2½ new pennies).
As a lieutenant in the cruiser Kenya, Burley was liaison officer when she carried holy relics of the Lord Buddha from Colombo to Rangoon, with a guard of 100 monks and 50 dancers. The relics, escorted by 100 ceremonial elephants, arrived on board after a four-day procession from the Temple of the Tooth at Kandy and were greeted by the Royal Marines band. The monks held a service every three hours in the admiral's quarters during the crossing of the Indian Ocean.
Kenya was bound for the Korean War, during which Burley's captain insisted on weekly mess dinners; after dusk action stations, the officers changed into formal mess dress.
Burley took part in Operation Chromite, the Allied landings at Inchon, where the most disconcerting feature was the 16in guns of the US battleships Missouri and New Jersey firing directly over his head in his action station on the upperdeck of Kenya. Missouri was known as the Mighty Mo, and he christened New Jersey the Mighty Moo
Paddy Sproule
Signaller whose coded exchanges with an SOE agent helped secure the surrender of Italy in 1943
Secret talks to that effect had taken place in Lisbon that summer between representatives of Marshal Badoglio and General Eisenhower. When the Italians returned to Rome, these were continued through an intermediary, Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent Dick Mallaby.
At Massingham, the closely-guarded SOE base in North Africa, Lt-Col Douglas Dodds-Parker selected four FANYs: Leo Railton, Sue Rowley, Paddy Sproule and her friend Barbara Tims. They were locked in a washroom, the best isolation which could be improvised, where they worked in pairs in eight-hour shifts.
On her shift, Paddy Sproule encoded and deciphered all traffic dealing with the surrender, using one code for the Italians (based on Bino Sanminiatelli's 1941 novel L'Omnibus del Corso), another for Mallaby based on a poem specially written for him, and a third code for messages to and from London.
Wireless contact with Mallaby was established on August 30 and continued over 67 messages until after the Italian armistice on September 8. Every one of Mallaby's messages was received and read perfectly.
Sir James Cleminson
War hero and CBI president who crested the wave of Thatcherite business reforms in the 1980s
Soldier who distinguished himself first in action, then at Sandhurst and finally as an authoritative historian of postwar Africa
Kenneth Ingham’s principal memorial will be his research and publications on the history of Africa. But, as a former soldier with some gruelling battle experience, he was a fine catch for RMA Sandhurst when appointed Director of Studies in 1962.
He had passed through the establishment during the war, in its temporary guise as 161 Officer Cadet Training Unit, and so was able to regard the formidable military atmosphere generated by the Brigade of Guards drill staff with wry amusement. His five years with the Academy were innovative, although not so radical as one plan he envisaged.
Kenneth Ingham was the only son of his father’s second wife and grew up almost as an only child. Early academic promise was matched by performance on the rugby field. He captained Bingley Grammar School’s 1st XV and had a trial for Yorkshire Schools. Bingley Grammar aspired to send its scholars to Cambridge, but Ingham had his sights set on Oxford. His award of an open exhibition was greeted by his headmaster with the riposte, “You can always try for Cambridge in March.”
In early wartime Oxford he joined the OTC and so had a grasp of military training when he arrived at Sandhurst as a member of an experimental alluniversity company. He was commissioned into the West Yorkshire Regiment and spent some months on the Kent coast with a Territorial Army battalion ready to meet the expected German invasion before embarking for the Middle East and the battleexperienced 2nd West Yorkshires in the Western Desert.
He took part in the Battle of Alam Halfa that finally broke Rommel’s dominance in the desert in September 1942, before leaving with the 5th Indian Division for Iraq, where the oilfields were threatened by the German advance on the Caucasus, then for India and the north-eastern front, where the Japanese threatened from Burma.
Ingham was severely wounded during the advance into Arakan at the end of 1943. The first doctor to examine him remarked, “You must have been praying hard when this hit you. You’re lucky to be alive.”
After recovering in hospital, and forgetting a posting order to a reinforcement camp in India, he made his own way back to 2nd West Yorkshires. In consequence, he was reported a deserter while actually fighting with his battalion in Burma When the Japanese 15th Army launched its attack on Imphal and Kohima in March 1944, the 5th Indian Division, including 2nd West Yorkshires, was flown to the northern front to help stem the enemy’s offensive into India. He was mentioned in dispatches for his leadership in the fighting to relieve Imphal. In the subsequent advance into Burma he was struck in the cheek by a sniper’s bullet that glanced off the bone without breaking it. During the bitter fighting for possession of the Japanese forward supply base at Meiktila, in central Burma in February/March 1945, Ingham was again severely wounded while in command of a company. He was given what was believed to be the last bottle of beer in the battalion by the doctor, a gesture interpreted as a final gift to a dying friend, but he survived and was awarded the Military Cross.
Offered early release on recovery to return to Oxford, he completed his degree and began a doctoral thesis. It had been his mother’s devout hope that he would become an Anglican priest but he decided he was unable to proclaim his faith with the required unswerving conviction. Instead, on completion of his doctorate, he accepted an appointment as lecturer in history at Makerere College, Uganda, thus initiating his career in Africa. He had only a handful of scholars and, in the virtual absence of written sources for his research, he began a programme of recording oral recollections. This system produced little reliable material but after a meeting with the chief responsible for the maintenance of burial sites of former rulers in Uganda, Ingham was able to set down a series of notes that was published many years later as The Kingdom of Toro in Uganda (1975).
To Ingham’s surprise, the then Governor of Uganda, Sir Andrew Cohen, appointed him a member of the country’s embryo parliament, to which aspiring African politicians were being introduced. This frequent contact with Ugandan and other African politicians became the source of his next publication The Making of Modern Uganda (1958), later to be followed by A History of East Africa in 1962.
In 1961 he was appointed OBE for his services in Uganda and invited by President Milton Obote to stand for election to the National Assembly, but the offer of the post of Director of Studies at Sandhurst proved too tempting.
In 1962 the two-year course was divided almost equally between academic and military studies. Ingham applauded this but with the rapidly growing complexity of international relations and modern warfare methods, he considered matters should be taken much further. In cooperation with the Assistant Commandant, Brigadier (later Major-General) Tony Deane-Drummond he drew up a proposal for an Army university incorporating RMA Sandhurst and the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham. The Ministry of Defence showed interest, but the cost-cutters suggested a single university responsible for preparing officers for all three Armed Services; that killed the idea.
When Ingham’s five-year contract at Sandhurst expired in 1967 he accepted the post of Professor of History at the University of Bristol, with particular focus on Africa. He came to the view that many historians in South Africa regarded the history of their country as a template for other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. His differing opinion on this issue was reflected in his biographies of Jan Christian Smuts (1986) and Milton Obote (1994).
He also ghost-wrote the autobiography of Buganda’s Chief Minister and later Regent, Paulo Kavuma, based on a bundle of notes Kavuma had sent to a British publisher and on Ingham’s own knowledge and admiration of the man. He deliberately avoided any contact with him while writing the book, as he feared for Kavuma’s safety under the tyrannical rule of the Ugandan President Idi Amin. After publication, Kavuma wrote to Ingham to thank him for what he described as “our book”.
Ingham became head of the history department at Bristol in 1971, retiring in 1986.
He married Elizabeth Mary Southall in 1949. She died in October 2009, and a son and daughter survive him.
Professor Kenneth Ingham, OBE, MC, was born on August 9, 1921. He died on September 13, 2010, aged 89
Dorset man who was decorated several times for his gallantry and leadership in fierce fighting after the Normandy landings
Once the Normandy beachhead had been established in June 1944, General Montgomery’s strategy was to draw the German armour on to the British 2nd Army under Sir Miles Dempsey on the left to clear the way for the 1st (US) Army to break out on the right. Dempsey’s plan to maintain pressure southwards included an attack by the 43rd Division — with a tank brigade in support — up the valley of the Orne towards Eterville and Maltot.
Major Giles Symonds, always known as “Joe”, commanded the left forward company of 4th Battalion The Dorsetshire Regiment in the July 10 assault on Eterville. It was the unit’s first serious engagement and it went well, despite inadvertent bombing of its troops by the Allied Air Force. Maltot was taken by the battalion on their right.
As predicted, the 10th Panzer Division launched an immediate counter-attack supported by intense artillery and mortar fire, regaining Maltot and threatening the Dorsets’ hold on Eterville. A shell blast threw Symonds face down into the slit trench he was digging, seriously wounding him. Even so, his company held its ground and 4th Dorsets held Eterville.
Casualties had proved lighter than expected in the first month of the campaign but the officer toll was high. Symonds was evacuated to England and recommended for the DSO, the citation reading, “By his personal example under shell fire he continued to inspire his men, even after he was badly wounded.” However the brigade commander felt obliged to downgrade his award to the Military Cross.
After recovering from his wounds Symonds was posted to a Scottish battalion embarking for France. Discovering on his arrival that the 4th Dorsets were nearby, he returned to them and took over command of A Company. His first big action was against enemy-held high ground east of the forest of Kleve, close to the Dutch-German border, on February 15, 1945.
The Dorsets had a stiff fight. The battalion’s vehicles with ammunition replenishments were subjected to intense shell fire; the enemy was expecting them. Again Symonds led the left forward company, blowing his whistle and bowling his steel helmet in the direction of the enemy in a gesture his men had come to recognise.
The enemy, comprising the Battlegroup Hutze, retaliated with machinegun, mortar and artillery fire, so that the Dorsets reached their final objectives only after their third co-ordinated attempt. The citation for the award of a Bar to his MC described Symonds’ conduct as “displaying superb gallantry throughout. He was everywhere about the battle field inspiring his men by his total disregard for personal safety.” As his company consolidated on its new positions, the tank on which he was riding to direct operations was hit by a Panzerfaust, and he was badly burned.
Evacuated to a field hospital for treatment, he resisted all efforts to move him to England. He returned to 4th Dorsets after a month, resuming command of his company in time for the Rhine crossing in March. After the German surrender in May, he accompanied the battalion to northern Italy for a few months before demobilisation.
Symonds actually came from a farming rather than a military family. He was the son of Giles Symonds of Horchester, Frome St Quintin, Dorset, and educated at Blundell’s. He was commissioned into the 4th (Territorial Army) Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment in 1938 and commanded the platoon based on Evershot. He rose to command a company before the the 4th Dorsets disembarked at Le Hamel on June 23, 1944 — the same point as the 1st Dorsets had landed on D-Day, 17 days earlier.
After demobilisation Symonds joined the family firm of auctioneers, Symonds & Sampson, in Dorchester. When the 4th Territorial Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment reformed in 1947, he rejoined and commanded it from 1951 to 1953, being appointed OBE in the latter year. He also farmed in the Horchester area and served on the Lord Chancellor’s panel of arbitrators under the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1948 for many years and hunted with the Cattistock into his eighties.
His wife Thelma and elder son predeceased him. His younger son survives him.
Lieutenant-Colonel Giles Symonds, OBE, MC and Bar, TD, soldier, auctioneer and farmer, was born on June 28, 1915. He died on August 15, 2010, aged 95
