От	Chestnut
К	Chestnut
Дата	28.09.2011 14:12:08
Рубрики	WWII; Спецслужбы; Армия; ВВС;

Военные некрологи из британских газет (с аннотациями по-русски)

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>Captain Paul Badcock
>Военно-морской инженер, который занимался возвращением в строй >кораблей, повреждённых во время войны за Фолкленды

> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8766364/Captain-Paul-Badcock.html

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/obituaries/article3172377.ece

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00213/Badcock2_213502c.jpg

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00213/Badcock1_213493c.jpg

Naval marine engineer who organised battle damage repairs to the Falklands task force fleet from a requisitioned oil rig support ship

The Royal Navy’s bitter struggle to liberate the Falkland Islands in 1982 much depended upon the many merchant ships that were “speedily taken up from trade”, giving rise to the acronym STUFT. From the liner Queen Elizabeth II to the 700-ton salvage tug Yorkshireman, 45 tankers, freighters and other types put themselves in harm’s way in support of the Navy’s 27 surface warships and six submarines as well as the 24 tankers and supply ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary.

One of the more important STUFT ships was the oil rig repair ship Stena Seaspread which was requisitioned from the Thistle Field in the North Sea on April 10, arriving in Portsmouth on April 12. In the next four days, Captain Paul Badcock, at that time the Commander-in-Chief’s staff marine engineer officer, supervised the installation of more living quarters, a heavy machine shop, more storage space, satellite communications and navigation systems as well as mustering 160 technicians to form Naval Party 1810 and selecting with skill some 900 tons of stores for a war of uncertain characteristics and unknown duration to be fought 8,000 miles from home.

Badcock and Stena Seaspread, with her ungainly helicopter deck atop and her normal crew of 32 somewhat crowded, sailed for South Georgia where, with the help of the Antarctic patrol ship Endurance, was able to loot further scrap steel plate from the Grytviken whaling station. Thereafter, Stena Seaspread operated mostly in the open ocean, using her propulsive positioning system, to carry out weather and battle damage repairs to some 40 ships including four captured Argentine vessels. Notable cases were the destroyer Glasgow which was pierced through the engine room by a bomb which did not explode but so damaged the hull that she had to return to the UK after patching up.

Charge Chief Shipwright Alan Cross recalled the sombre, silent atmosphere aboard the destroyer Glamorgan after suffering 13 fatalities from an Exocet missile hit: “They were absolutely shocked. We were told not to talk to them unless they wanted to talk to us.

“Besides engineering fixes, holes there were aplenty,” he recalled. “Small from aircraft fire, all shapes and sizes from bombs and rockets. I used all the trades I had ever been taught.”

After the Argentine surrender, repair work and buoy laying at Port Stanley, Stena Seaspread left on July 25 for home and a rapturous welcome. Badcock was appointed CBE in recognition of his pioneering work and outstanding leadership. “There was no repair base within thousands of miles and thus his efforts were irreplaceable,” read his citation.

Brought up at Seaton in east Devon, Paul Badcock faced a toss-up between farming and the Navy, joining Dartmouth naval college in 1948. Large in physique, personality and charm, Badcock was captain of the rugby team at the RN Engineering College near Plymouth, then of the formidable Devonport Services team and subsequently the Navy. He served as a watchkeeper in the carrier Ocean and the destroyer Decoy before in 1960 being appointed to a training job at the apprentices school HMS Fisgard near Plymouth where he led the youngsters from the front, noted for his “outward-bound” expeditions across Dartmoor in all weathers.

He had an unusually large number of seagoing appointments, the next being the ice patrol ship Protector, serving two eight-month voyages to the Antarctic before tours in the frigates Dido and Phoebe as marine engineer officer. Next came the job of senior engineer, or departmental second-in-command, fount of wisdom and holy terror to the junior officers, in the large fleet carrier Eagle. He clearly merited his promotion to commander in June 1968 — there followed a pleasant two years in Gibraltar dockyard where he and his family enjoyed camping expeditions in Spain and Morocco.

They bought a house near Weymouth in Dorset when Badcock was given a demanding post with the Flag Officer Sea Training at Portland. His promotion to captain came in late 1976, his talents and management skills recognised by his appointment as Fleet Marine Engineering Officer, reporting to the CinC. His final appointment was Captain Fleet Maintenance, responsible for the technicalities and policy of marine engineering support.

In retirement at Briantspuddle in Dorset, Badcock, a man of firm Christian faith, devoted himself to his community. He was a Samaritan for 15 years, an active churchwarden, parish councillor, member of the Royal British Legion and a forceful member of the Campaign to Protect Rural England where his campaign RAGE, Residents Against Gravel Extraction, became a template for similar actions elsewhere.

He is survived by his wife Eve “Chips” Chittenden, whom he married in 1957, and their two daughters.


Captain Paul Badcock, CBE, naval marine engineer, was born on February 24, 1930. He died on August 13, 2011, aged 81


>Air Commodore 'Dim’ Strong

>Пилот, который перед тем как его отправили в Шталаг Люфт 3, >пропьянствовал всю ночь с взявшими его в плен немцами

> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/air-force-obituaries/8748138/Air-Commodore-Dim-Strong.html

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/obituaries/article3172387.ece

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00213/Strong_213498k.jpg


Wartime bomber pilot and prisoner of war who played a pivotal role in several escape attempts including that at Stalag Luft III

As a flight commander in 104 Squadron in September 1941, David (“Dim”) Strong was compelled to ditch his Wellington bomber in the North Sea after it ran out of fuel on its return from a raid on the Fiat factory in Turin. Rescued by a Danish fishing boat, he and his crew were landed in occupied Denmark and passed into captivity. For the remainder of the war Strong played an active role in tunnelling and morale-boosting activities in a number of different PoW camps, eventually ending up in Stalag Luft III in Sagan.

There, as adjutant of one of the camp compounds, he was noted for the good working relationship he established with the camp authorities which was of immense benefit to the wellbeing of Stalag Luft III’s inmates. As such he was not allowed to take part in the risky “Great Escape” from the camp, which took place in March 1944. While such a decision may well have irked such a die-hard organiser of escape attempts, it was perhaps to be his good fortune. Of the 76 prisoners who made it beyond the wire that night 50 were later shot on Hitler’s direct orders.

Repatriated to the UK at the war’s end he continued with an RAF career that had begun in the mid-1930s, rising to senior appointments and commanding the Apprentice School at Halton, Buckinghamshire, from 1964 to 1966.

David Malcolm Strong (known throughout his life as “Dim”, though that was probably an accident of initials and no reflection in his incisive mind) was born in Cardiff in 1913 and educated at Cardiff High School. In 1936 he joined the RAF on a short service commission and after pilot training was posted to 166 Squadron, then operating the antiquated Handley Page Heyford, the last of the RAF’s biplane long-range night bombers.

In 1940 he became an instructor in an operational training unit and was mentioned in dispatches. The following April one of the engines of the twin-engined Whitley bomber he was captaining on a navigation exercise caught fire and he began to lose height. Instead of bailing out as would have been excusable, he determined to try to save the aircraft, and was able to bring it into an emergency landing, for which he was awarded the Air Force Cross.

In the small hours of September 11, 1941, when returning from bombing Turin, a target towards the limit of the Wellington’s normal range, Strong’s aircraft ran into bad weather and was struck by lightning which affected its navigational equipment and radio. Running dangerously low on fuel he eased the Wellington down through cloud gaining some visibility at 300ft. But this time he realised he would have to ditch and through his skill got the aircraft down in one piece on to the surface of the North Sea, where he and his crew took to the dinghy, as the Wellington sank.

After several hours they were picked up by a Danish fishing vessel, whose crew were reluctant to try and make for England, landing them instead at the Jutland port of Esbjerg. There they were royally entertained by the adjutant and pilots of the local Luftwaffe fighter unit, before being sent to Germany, where their lives thereafter took on a more austere character.

In October 1941 he arrived at Oflag VIB (at about the same time that the legless fighter ace Douglas Bader also became an inmate of this camp near Warburg in North West Germany). As a senior officer Strong soon became involved in escape attempts and was put in charge of one of the three digging shifts of a tunnel designed to surface outside the perimeter. This collapsed, undermined by torrential rain when the end was in sight but, nothing daunted, Oflag VIB’s inmates began another, one of which began in Strong’s barrack hut. After 300ft of digging, this, too, was about to break surface when it was discovered. By this time regarded as a “troublemaker” Strong was transferred in May 1942 to Stalag Luft III in Silesia (now Poland). From there, however, he was soon moved to Oflag XXIB in Pomerania where he was once more put in charge of a tunnel. This, too, was discovered just as success was in its sights and Strong was speedily dispatched back to Sagan. There in the perishing cold January and February of 1945, the inmates of the camp were marched out to make their way westwards to prevent them from falling into the hands of the advancing Red Army. Many died in the bitter weather, but Strong survived to be repatriated in May 1945.

After the war he was offered a permanent commission and after commanding two RAF stations, Jurby in the Isle of Man and Driffield, Yorkshire, passed through the Staff College in 1949. He subsequently returned to the college’s directing staff, commanded RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire, 1957-59, and was Senior Air Staff Officer RAF Germany from 1962 to 1963. In 1964 he was appointed to Halton where he became a most popular commandant in his guidance of the Trenchard “brats” — graduates of the illustrious RAF technical apprenticeship scheme — of his era. He was appointed CB in 1964.

A keen sportsman — he had played rugby for Cardiff and in the RAF team that took on the Army at Twickenham in 1936 — Strong was chairman of the RAF Rugby Union, 1954-56, and of the RAF Golf Society, 1964-66. He married in 1941 Daphne Irene Warren-Brown. She died in 2008 and he is survived by their two sons and a daughter.


Air Commodore David (Dim) Strong, CB, AFC, wartime bomber pilot and PoW, was born on September 30, 1913. He died on August 21, 2011, aged 97

Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Holder-Jones

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/obituaries/article3176937.ece

Капитан противолодочных траулеров, награжденный за храбрость при ликвидации вражеской магнитной мины

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00215/jones1_215187c.jpg

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00215/jones2_215188c.jpg


Wartime captain of anti-submarine trawlers who was decorated for his bravery in helping to dismantle an enemy magnetic mine

Geoffrey Holder-Jones’s father was a Liverpool draper and somewhat authoritarian. Amid the economic depression of the early 1930s, the young Geoffrey complained of loneliness, so was told to go and join the “weekend sailors”, thus becoming a signalman, or “bunting-tosser”, in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. His subsequent career in the smallest ships of the wartime navy exemplified the unsung fringes of the fleet so often neglected by the history books.

He first went to sea for training in the battlecruiser Renown. Mobilised in 1939, he joined the cruiser Adventure which was, at the outbreak of war, the navy’s only substantial minelayer. He was present at the remarkable and now largely forgotten event when King George VI reviewed in Weymouth Bay on August 9, 1939 no less than 133 warships of the Reserve Fleet before they dispersed to their war stations — a prescient Admiralty move as war was not declared until Sunday, September 3.

Adventure was badly damaged by a magnetic-influence mine near the Tongue light vessel, suffering many casualties. Holder-Jones was flung out of his bunk, injuring his hand. He was then drafted to join a converted herring drifter called Tritonia in Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. During his tour, a destroyer captured a German minelayer off the Norwegian coast and towed it into Scapa. Two “boffins” from HMS Vernon, the enemy mine research centre at Portsmouth, wished to dismantle one of the magnetic mines, so Holder-Jones volunteered to help, being subsequently awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his contribution to this dangerous task.

Selected for officer training at Lancing College in Sussex, Holder-Jones met his future wife, Gladys, at a dance on Brighton Pier in February 1941. Commissioned in March, he was sent to the 560-ton “Lake”-class armed whaler Grasmere, renamed Wastwater and based in Iceland. Here, under extreme weather conditions, Wastwater patrolled the Hvalfiord anchorage and in December 1941 escorted Russian convoy PQ7B part-way to Murmansk. In August 1941, Wastwater was one of the three trawlers involved in towing U570, the only U-boat to surrender to an aircraft during the war, to an Icelandic beach.

In February 1942 Wastwater was despatched to the eastern seaboard of the United States. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 was followed by a declaration of war by Germany which found the United States totally unprepared to defend against U-boat attack the vulnerable coastwise merchant traffic, often silhouetted at night against waterfront lights and lacking escorts, aircraft and a convoy system. Thus Britain’s often-forgotten loan of 10 corvettes and 22 anti-submarine trawlers — with a good deal of sound advice based on experience — was very welcome.

Holder-Jones was given command of the better-armed “Isles”-class trawler Baffin, completed at Collingwood Shipyard, Ontario, in August 1942. Returning home after three years overseas, he was appointed an auxiliary naval pilot at Portsmouth, mustering landing craft for the D-Day invasion. Subsequently and up to the end of the war, he commanded the 1000-ton “Military”-class trawler Guardsman, the largest type built during the war. Highlights were a visit to Guardsman by the King and Queen at Wallasey and receiving the surrender of U-boat U2334. Holder-Jones was awarded the Volunteer Reserve Decoration.

Needing a job after demobilisation, he was employed painting Brighton Pier, assuring his employer that he was not frightened of heights or water. He recalled that he was paid more than his captain’s pay in Guardsman. He then trained as a teacher and taught in a number of schools around Brighton, finally for many years as the headmaster of St Andrew’s Church School, Hove. Known as a lively and engaging man, he worked for 20 years as a volunteer at Worthing Hospital. His biography, Signalman Jones, written by Tim Parker, appeared in 2010 with a foreword by one of his pupils, Rear- Admiral John Lippiett, chief executive of the Mary Rose project.

He is survived by his wife Gladys, whom he married in 1944, and their two daughters.

Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Holder-Jones, DSM, VRD, wartime trawler captain and schoolmaster, was born on September 12, 1915. He died on September 10, 2011, aged 95

Major-General John Page

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/obituaries/article3176941.ece

офицер-сапёр, награжденный Военным Крестом в Корее за бои на реке Имджин в 1951 году и упомянутый в сводках за действия на Кипре в 1957 году, который стал помощником коменданта Сандхерста, а затем занимался финансами благотворительных организаций

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00215/page1_215180c.jpg

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00215/page2_215184c.jpg

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00215/page3_215186c.jpg


Sapper officer awarded the MC in Korea who became Assistant Commandant at Sandhurst and later advised charities on financing

John Page was a far cry from the type of Sapper officer satirised by the rest of the Army as “mad, married or Methodist”. Married certainly, but sane, Roman Catholic and with an abiding concern for those less fortunate or less forceful than himself. After a successful military career, he turned to the better organisation and financing of charity work, helping, for example, “Home Start”, a Leicester-based group providing aid to disadvantaged families with young children, to expand into an operation with 200 branches nationwide.

As a Sapper officer Page took part in the North West European campaign when, in addition to the usual myriad of engineer tasks, his field company supported “R” Force, the mixed bag of units responsible for feeding false intelligence to the enemy about Allied deployments and intentions. He recalled in particular the deception — using inflatable dummy tanks and trucks — to distract German attention from Montgomery’s preparation for the February 1945 Reichswald offensive.

He went to India in the summer of 1945 but Japan’s surrender in August precluded any part in active operations in the Far East until, after serving in England, he left for Korea in 1950 with 55 Field Squadron RE to join 28th British Commonwealth Brigade. The American-led United Nations force had driven the invading communist North Koreans back into their own territory as far as the Yalu river in the extreme north, but the intervention of the Chinese Army — under the guise of “volunteers” — changed the odds. The UN force was pushed southwards and one of Page’s first jobs was to blow two bridges north of Seoul. Despite the enemy advancing on both his flanks, he delayed the firing just long enough to allow the last American unit to cross to safety.

At the onset of the Imjin river battle in April 1951, his engineer troop was again threatened by encirclement, this time by several hundred of the enemy. Adopting infantry tactics, he placed his Sappers in fire positions to hold the high ground he had chosen and inflicted casualties on the advancing Chinese until ordered to withdraw. For this action, and for carrying a seriously wounded man to safety under fire in a separate engagement, he was awarded the Military Cross.

On qualification at the Staff College, Camberley, he went to Cyprus — then in the grip of the EOKA terrorist campaign for union with Greece — as chief logistics staff officer of an infantry brigade based in Nicosia. This was a busy and dangerous job with daily bomb explosions and murder commonplace. He was mentioned in despatches at its conclusion in 1957.

Having made his name in two postwar campaigns, it was not surprising to find him teaching at the Staff College after commanding a field engineer squadron in Germany. He was markedly successful, bringing wit and good humour into discussions that too often lapsed into caustic criticism under less student-friendly instructors. His interest in the development of young officers did not go unnoticed and he was later appointed Assistant Commandant at Sandhurst.

From his command of an armoured engineer regiment in Germany, Page served exclusively in posts demanding innovation and change. His regiment was equipped with a new generation of assault demolition vehicles and bridge-layers based on the Centurion tank. Then he went to the MoD as secretary of a committee on future army structure before joining the Imperial Defence College as a junior member of the Directing Staff. On promotion to brigadier in 1969, he returned to Germany as Commander Royal Engineers 1st (British) Corps, facing expansion and reorganisation of Sapper resources to meet the increased armoured mobility of the infantry.

Sandhurst, often perceived as a conservative institution, was on the brink of upheaval when he arrived as Assistant Commandant and was made responsible for instituting radical change. In response to the market force factor of insufficient suitable applicants for the two-year course designed to produce the full-career officer, the curriculum was to be remodelled on that of the Officer Cadet School at Aldershot turning out subalterns to command platoons or their equivalent on short-service commissions, a function Sandhurst also absorbed. Page did his best with a scheme that he and many contemporaries regarded as potentially damaging in the longer term, but fortunately the huge increase in the number of university graduates applying for the Sandhurst course designed specifically for them mitigated its impact.

Page’s final military appointment as Director of Personal Services was in many ways the apogee of a career spent wrestling with intractable difficulties. There is never a moment in peacetime that financial resources are adequate to match the requirements of service pay and conditions of service. Page put his broad shoulders to this heavy wheel, as had others before him and have since. He was appointed CB for his efforts on leaving the Army in 1978.

John Humphrey Page was the son of Captain W. J. Page of the East Lancashire Regiment, who was severely wounded in the First World War. He was educated at Stonyhurst and attended the wartime short course at Glasgow University. On leaving the Army, he was a Colonel-Commandant Royal Engineers (1980-85), a director of London Law Trust (1979-88) and of RBM (Holdings) from 1980 to 1986, but his principal work was as an adviser or member of council of a wide variety of charities.

His work for Home Start, which he joined in 1980 when the charity had 30 volunteers supporting the same number of families, continued over a decade in which the charity expanded to a workforce of more than 7,000 volunteers. He was a vice-chairman of SSAFA and chairman of the Winged Fellowship Trust (later Vitalise), for Wiltshire, providing holidays for the elderly and disabled, chairman of the board of governors at St Mary’s School, Shaftesbury, and a member of the board of governors of Stonyhurst.

He married Angela Bunting in 1956, who survives him with three sons and a daughter.

Major-General J. H. Page, CB, OBE, MC, soldier and adviser to charities, was born on March 5, 1923. He died on September 21, 2011, aged 88


'Бій відлунав. Жовто-сині знамена затріпотіли на станції знов'

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От	Chestnut
К	Chestnut (28.09.2011 14:12:08)
Дата	29.09.2011 16:17:36

Военные некрологи из...

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Eric de la Torre

Коммандо, попавший в плен во время рейда на Сен-Назер, и с четвёртой попытки бежавший из плена

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/8794978/Eric-de-la-Torre.html

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02011/torre_2011840b.jpg


The force left Falmouth on March 26 1942. De la Torre was in one of the motor launches following the destroyer Campbeltown and had a bleak view of the protection which her wooden hull might afford him against coastal batteries. However, the flotilla managed to convince the Germans that it was friendly as it approached St Nazaire under the cover of night. But the calm was short-lived. “As we neared the lock gates,” de la Torre said afterwards, “searchlights came on, the Germans opened up with heavy guns and all hell broke loose.”

Campbeltown, packed with delayed-action explosives, hit the dock gate shortly after 1.30 on the morning of March 28. De la Torre jumped over the rail of his launch, heading for the swing bridge at the entrance to the submarine pens, only to be caught in a huge explosion as the winding house blew up.

He was buried in rubble, and by the time he had struggled clear the way to the bridge was blocked. He ran back to the quay and helped wounded on to the launch. Shells crashed straight through the craft, setting it ablaze, and the order was given to abandon ship.
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Grabbing a Carley float, de la Torre leapt over the side but, weighted down by a pistol in each pocket, he sank. His inflated Mae West brought him back to the surface but, just as he came up, shell fragments tore through the float. Down he went again.

Finally struggling to the surface, he got hold of a raft laden with wounded men, and hung on as it drifted down the river. “It was a desperate scene,” he said later. “Pools of burning fuel were floating on the water and as we tried to steer past them shells and bullets were splashing in on either side. Motor launches were on fire. It was chaos. I thought nobody could live through it. Then, through all this confusion, I could hear a voice singing O God, Our Help in Ages Past.”

Some of his comrades who could hang on no longer were swept away. Meanwhile, de la Torre could see figures waiting on shore. He hoped that they might be locals, but it soon became clear that they were German soldiers.

A marine officer removed de la Torre’s pistols and gave him, in exchange, a souvenir ring bearing the coat of arms of St Nazaire. Other Germans, astounded at their daring in coming six miles up the heavily defended estuary in such small boats, offered their compliments. De la Torre was taken to hospital, all the windows of which were blown in the next morning when Campbeltown exploded, putting the dock out of action for the rest of the war.




'Бій відлунав. Жовто-сині знамена затріпотіли на станції знов'

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От	Chestnut
К	Chestnut (29.09.2011 16:17:36)
Дата	06.10.2011 13:50:52

Военные некрологи из британских газет (с аннотациями по-русски)

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Captain Maurice Usherwood

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02016/usherwood_2016557b.jpg


Офицер Королевского ВМФ, участвовавший в освобождении острова Корфу и демонстрировавший Черчиллю боевые возможности сонара

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/naval-obituaries/8804875/Captain-Maurice-Usherwood.html

Usherwood was the naval commander of Operation Mercerised, a joint force which in October 1944 liberated the Greek island. Nos 2 (Army) and 40 (Royal Marine) Commando, under Brigadier Tom Churchill, had landed on the hilly Albanian coast north of Corfu; they needed to capture the port of Sarande in order to bring in reinforcements and stores, but were left stranded by heavy opposition and poor weather.

Usherwood was sent to see what he could do. After landing on a narrow gap in the tall cliffs, he went ashore to liaise with Churchill. Together they organised resupply of the commandos, and planned a surprise attack on Sarande, for which Usherwood brought up reinforcements, including more landing craft and two destroyers, Wilton and Belvoir. Meanwhile, the Assyrian Parachute Company (which had been raised in Iraq) was landed to outflank the German defences. After a bombardment by Usherwood’s destroyers, Sarande fell on October 9. Two days later Churchill and Usherwood decided on an advance to Corfu, which they found weakly defended.

They were greeted by an ecstatic Greek population and by two clerics, who from the colour of their beards became known as the black and white bishops, who seemed to be in charge. Urged on by the priests, a victory parade was held on October 14, led by Usherwood’s sailors. The march past was almost spoiled when Greek girls rushed forward to strew the road with long-stemmed roses, which caused havoc as an impromptu Greek band leading the parade was marching barefoot, and accordingly broke up in disarray. Usherwood was awarded a DSC.

Squadron Leader Peter Russell

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00217/russell_217286c.jpg


Пилот Королевских ВВС, боровшийся с немецкими подводными лодками, и перешедший в Бомбардировочное Командование тяжёлой зимой 1944-45 года

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/obituaries/article3182792.ece

RAF pilot who cut his teeth on anti-U-boat patrols before joining Bomber Command during the gruelling winter of 1944-45

Peter Russell distinguished himself in the RAF during the war, first in Coastal Command and then with Bomber Command.

Anthony Peter Russell was born in London in 1918. His father, a South London businessman, had come back from the Western Front of the First World War as a major in the Rifle Brigade with a Military Cross. Peter Russell volunteered for the RAF as soon as the Second World War began and was trained as a pilot.

Too old for Fighter Command, for which he volunteered, he was posted to Coastal Command. He had three dull years in Northern Ireland flying the two-engined Lockheed Hudsons of 225 Squadron on anti-U-boat patrols over the Western Approaches: work at once exacting and unexciting but indispensable in checking the U-boat menace.

He was then posted to Bomber Command, re-trained to fly the fourengined Avro Lancaster, and spent the winter of 1944-45 as captain of an aircraft in 425 Squadron, constantly bombing Germany. For sustained gallantry and devotion to duty at this appalling task, he was awarded the DFC, which made him feel that he had lived up to his father’s standards.

Devastating air attacks, US by day and British by night, were combined with the ground advances of the Anglo-American and Soviet armies and naval blockade to defeat the Third Reich.

After Hitler’s suicide brought the German part of the war to a close, Russell was invited to become second-in-command of a Lincoln squadron in Shield Force, which was being assembled to attack Japan. Before they saw action, the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought on the Japanese surrender, on August 15, 1945.

The chiefs of staff at once ordered the squadron to go to Hong Kong, making sure that it got there before the Americans. A flight of Lincolns complied at once; Russell brought on the ground crew, three days later, in the battleship Anson. An apparent kamikaze attack on Anson by a swarm of speed-boats was blown out of the water, and there were no more troubles with the Japanese.

Russell enjoyed Hong Kong, and had hoped to settle in the police force there after he left the RAF ; but while he was in England being demobilised, his Chinese lover was killed in a banal road accident, and he could never bear to go back.

His mother’s family ran a hosiery business in Leicestershire, for which he had started training before the war. He spent most of his civil career in it, living in the village of Skeffington, east of Leicester, where he was churchwarden for nearly 30 years.

He was a devout Anglican, fond of classical music yet with an impish sense of humour; a skilled sailor in small boats (a craft he learnt from his father on the East Anglian coast); and, all his life, a great lover of nature. As a boy he made friends with a grass snake, which lived with him and went out for walks with him twined round his arm.

In 2007, his 90th year, the Barnsley publisher Pen & Sword put out his war autobiography. In it he recollected the joys of flight and was more outspoken than is usual about the sexual needs of aircrew on operations. Given the cumbrous title of Flying in Defiance of the Reich: a Lancaster Pilot’s Rites of Passage, his book was another of the vivid airmens’ recollections from that war.

He married Jane Underhill in 1947; she survives him, with their son and daughter. They built three gardens together in Skeffington, in west Dorset, and in Cold Ash near Newbury.

Squadron Leader (Anthony) Peter Russell, DFC, RAFVR 1939-46 and businessman, was born on August 8, 1918. He died on August 1, 2011, aged 92


Major-General Giles Mills

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00217/mills_217282c.jpg


Способный офицер, интересовавшийся историей, который завершил заслуженную карьеру на должности директора управления личного состава армии в 1970-е годы

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/obituaries/article3182785.ece

Able officer with a taste for history who capped a distinguished army career as an effective director of manning during the 1970s

Greatly as he loved his regiment — and was fascinated by its American origins — Giles Mills was at heart a countryman and historian. Quietly spoken and with an encyclopaedic memory for people as well as of events, he possessed an intellect that would have suited him well for an academic life — given time off for shooting and bird watching — had the Second World War not swept him up.

Giles Hallam Mills was born in 1922, the second son of Colonel Sir John and Lady Carolay Mills of Bisterne Manor, Hampshire, and educated at Eton. He enlisted in 1941, intending to join the King’s Royal Rifle Corps (60th Rifles); he found himself badged to the Rifle Brigade instead but finally achieved his preferred choice.

On commissioning he joined the 1st/60th in North Africa then served through the long slog up the Italian peninsula. As a motor battalion mounted in lightly armoured tracked vehicles and scout cars, 1st/60th was responsible for supporting tanks in close country and at night. It was a hazardous business — while their vehicles matched the tanks for speed they gave scant protection against artillery or small arms fire.

Mills’s battalion saw several intense actions in a campaign that lasted from the autumn of 1943 to April 1945, including 63 days facing the German Gothic (Winter) Line in the first of two bitter winters. During the 8th Army’s advance to and beyond Arezzo in July 1944, the 1st/60th and the 1st King’s Dragoon Guards formed the flank guard for XIII Corps as it outpaced X Corps on its right.

Good radio communications and the mobility of motor battalions led to their frequent use to cover gaps; 1st/60th was deployed to relieve the 25th Indian Brigade east of the Tiber in August 1944 before being shifted eastwards to the Adriatic coast for the 8th Army’s second attack on the Gothic Line.

Mills became the battalion’s youthful adjutant as the campaign dragged on. He was mentioned in dispatches and remained with 1st/60th in the army occupying northern Italy after the German surrender in April 1945.

His interest in the origin of his regiment as the 60th Royal Americans — formed in 1775 from European mercenaries and volunteers from Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia to fight the French in North America — intensified when he married Emily Hallam Tuck from Maryland in 1947. She was his cousin and daughter of Captain William Hallam Tuck and great-granddaughter of the Military Secretary to the Confederate general Robert E. Lee during the American Civil War.

American history, including that of the Indian tribes became a lifelong interest. Mills took nothing at face value but sought out its origins with the passion of the true academic. The ancient ruins of Italy that he had encountered during the war fascinated him, and he returned to see them again many times in later life. He enjoyed the company of Italians from all walks of life and held no apparent resentment against the Germans he had fought.

Having converted to a regular commission towards the end of the war, he qualified at the Staff College, Camberley, before attending the US Army Staff College. There he earned the nickname Boss of Togetherness for his swift mastery of staff problems and their coherent presentation to fellow students.

He was the military assistant to the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Hull, from 1961 to 1963. Hull, an exceptionally able staff officer himself, was dismissive of dissembling politicians and of the wiles of the Chief of the Defence Staff, Earl Mounbatten, and required an MA as principled as himself.

Mills took over command of 2nd Green Jackets (KRRC), as his regiment had become, in 1963 before an emergency tour of duty in British Guiana, where strikes and threat of riots arising from local political, social and economic conflicts were delaying the granting of independence. Thanks to Mills’s customary calm and efficient manner, security was satisfactorily maintained until the former colony was well on the way to self-government as Guyana in 1966.

Appointed OBE on completion of his battalion command, he later commanded the 8th Infantry Brigade based in Chester and attended the 1970 course at the Imperial Defence College, now the Royal College of Defence Studies, before — to his delight — being appointed military attaché and commander of the British Army Staff in Washington; this gave him the opportunity to study local history while being stationed close to his US family.

On promotion to major-general in 1974, he was appointed director of manning (Army) in the MoD at a point where units, recently reduced in size for reasons of economy, had to be raised to full establishment to face the security crisis in Northern Ireland. Attracting good-quality recruits to the Army and retaining those who show continuing potential remains a serious problem today. Mills was able to moderate the difficulties to the extent that units sent to Northern Ireland were never critically below strength.

He completed his military service on a note of success and was appointed CB on his retirement in 1977. Initially he returned to a life of country pursuits but in 1979 was invited to become Resident Governor and Keeper of the Jewel House, Tower of London. He held this post until 1984 and was appointed CVO by the Queen that year.

His final retirement near Winchester and then the Bisterne estate was saddened by his wife Emily’s illness and a callous burglary involving his wife’s carer and an accomplice that cost them many treasured family antiques and paintings.

At the trial, the 85-year old general’s evidence in the witness box over three hours of questioning indicated no hint of diminution in his remarkable memory and lucidity. A conviction ensued and many items were recovered.

His wife died in 2005. He is survived by two sons and a daughter.

Major-General G. H. Mills, CB, CVO, OBE, soldier, countryman and historian, was born on April 1, 1922. He died on September 12, 2011, aged 89



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От	Chestnut
К	Chestnut (28.09.2011 14:12:08)
Дата	28.09.2011 14:18:15

Военные некрологи из...

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David Croft

Сценарист двух классических английских топичных комедийных телесериалов, "Папина армия" и "Алло, алло"

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00215/croft1_215207c.jpg


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00215/croft4_215215c.jpg


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/8792492/David-Croft.html
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/obituaries/article3177090.ece

Comic writer whose TV masterpiece was Dad’s Army, among a host of other hit series including Are You Being Served? and ’Allo ’Allo

David Croft was one of television’s most prolific comedy creators who co-wrote and also brought to the screen a wide-ranging run of enduring hits, the jewel in the crown being Dad’s Army. In a career spanning more than 25 years he went on to devise or co-devise the comedy series It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, ’Allo, ’Allo, Are You Being Served?, Grace and Favour, Hi-de-Hi, and You Rang, M’Lord?. The humour throughout was unashamedly broad and they all consistently registered high in the ratings for the BBC.

At its peak after a slow start, Dad’s Army, which starred Arthur Lowe as the pompous Captain Mainwaring, commanding officer of the wartime Home Guard squad of village misfits, was attracting a weekly audience of 18 million in the 1970s. The show won new generations of devotees when it was rebroadcast in every successive decade. The BBC hierarchy was initially nervous of the show’s subject matter. The fear was that viewers might prove hostile to the idea of mocking, however gently, Britain’s “finest hour”; but Croft and his co-writer Jimmy Perry persuasively argued that as Britain was never actually invaded by Hitler’s armies, the fun was harmless. This proved to be the case in the eyes of viewers. They revelled in the delightful eccentricities of the characters at mythical Walmington-on-Sea; the show collected a variety of awards over the years.

Some protests were later to be aired over another of Croft’s wartime comedies, ’Allo, ’Allo, written with Jeremy Lloyd, which poked fun at the French Resistance and depicted the German Gestapo as inoffensive figures of ridicule. However, apart from Second World War purists who failed to see the joke, the objections receded once the show’s popularity was established.

Croft was a dedicated collaborator who wrote with two main partners: Jimmy Perry (Dad’s Army, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, Hi-de-Hi and You Rang, M’Lord?) and Jeremy Lloyd (Are You Being Served?, Grace and Favour and ’Allo, ’Allo). Once the scripts were written, though, he went alone to the studio to produce and/or direct each episode. His shows made stars of a number of appreciative actors and actresses. Among them Su Pollard, Ruth Madoc, Gordon Kaye, Vicki Michelle, Paul Shane and Simon Cadell.

He had his flops, although he preferred to call them non-successes. A show he wrote for Australian television called Bird in the Bush failed there and was never screened in Britain; and the futuristic Come Back Mrs Noah, set in 2050, vanished in space after only six episodes.

Croft, after early years as a performer, became a shadowy back-room figure who preferred to work behind the scenes in contrast to his co-authors who, as actors, continued to appear occasionally as well as write. His full head of silver-grey hair and cheerful round face half obscured by heavy-rimmed glasses, were rarely seen by viewers. Their first glimpse of him might well have been in a newspaper photograph when he went with Jimmy Perry to Buckingham Palace in 1978 to collect their respective OBEs.

Yet his roots were steeped in the theatre. Both his parents were actors. His mother was Anne Croft, a star of musical comedy and revue, and his father was Reginald Sharland, a radio actor in Hollywood. He was destined for a career in showbusiness and wanted nothing else from the age of 4 when he accidentally wandered onstage at a theatre where his mother was topping the bill.

David Croft was born David John Sharland in 1922 in Sandbanks, Dorset, and was educated at St John’s Wood preparatory school, North London, and then Rugby. He made his first broadcast at the age of 16 in a show called Charing Cross Road, and at 17 landed his first film role as Perkins in Goodbye, Mr Chips — which he regarded as the beginning, middle and end of his film career. He joined the Army in 1942. After graduating from Sandhurst he served in the Royal Artillery in England and North Africa and then India and Singapore, rising to the rank of major before he was demobilised in 1946. He continued as a performer in the early postwar years, acting in repertory in touring productions. He also appeared in the West End including a revival of Wild Violets at the Stoll Theatre.

However, he became more interested in the creative side of the profession and began writing lyrics for such early television series as Don’t Spare the Horses, Turn it Up, and Face the Music. He was then still making the occasional television appearance in the shows Bal Creole and Whirligig. In the same period he collaborated with Ted Kavanagh, the creator of the wartime wireless hit It’s That Man Again that starred Tommy Handley, in scripting It’s a Small World.

Croft also wrote and directed for the theatre. He produced a number of revues for Butlins Holiday Camps as well as writing a succession of pantomimes for the London Palladium and the Howard and Wyndham company before returning full time to television. He once said he wrote so many pantos that in the end he had to “kick the habit like a drug”.

His astonishing achievements in comedy, recognised as one of the toughest spheres of showbusiness, began in 1967. Jimmy Perry was appearing in the BBC comedy series Hugh and I which Croft was directing. Perry approached him with an idea for a comedy about the Home Guard, calling it Fighting Tigers. Croft loved the idea but hated the title. He changed it to Dad’s Army and they began writing the pilot for the first series.

Dad’s Army wasn’t an immediate hit and the reviews were mixed. It took a while before audiences began to appreciate the characters such as John Le Mesurier’s lugubrious Sergeant Wilson and Clive Dunn’s panicky “They don’t like it up ’em” Lance-Corporal Jones.

Croft once explained that he made it a policy never to simply write funny lines. The humour, he said, grew out of the characters so that whatever they said became funny in itself. With the rising success of Dad’s Army Croft and Perry were to gain complete control from scripting to casting and direction. They also wrote the one feature film spin-off which was made in 1971. Over the years Dad’s Army was sold widely abroad to Holland, Sweden, Belgium, New Zealand, Australia, Yugoslavia, Zambia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Croft’s successful comedy career continued virtually unabated, he and Perry going on to write It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, about concert-party entertainers in wartime India; the holiday camp hit Hi-de-Hi, and the period country- mansion romp You Rang, M’Lord?

He linked up with his other co-writer Jeremy Lloyd to create the department store comedies Are You Being Served? and Grace and Favour, following up with ’Allo, ’Allo.

A later success was Oh Doctor Beeching!, created and written with Richard Spendlove, which was set in a rural railway station under threat of the Beeching axe. It ran on the BBC for two series between 1995 and 1997. It was Croft’s last major work for the BBC.

In 2003 he was given a lifetime achievement award at the British Comedy Awards. In 1981 he had received the Desmond Davis award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for his outstanding contribution to the industry.

Croft retired in 1997 to his country home, Honington Hall in Suffolk. He also had a home in Portugal, where he died.

He is survived by his wife, Ann, and seven children.

David Croft, OBE, television producer, director and comedy writer, was born on September 7, 1922. He died on September 27, 2011, aged 89


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