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.
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
Способный офицер, интересовавшийся историей, который завершил заслуженную карьеру на должности директора управления личного состава армии в 1970-е годы
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
'Бій відлунав. Жовто-сині знамена затріпотіли на станції знов'
