Brigadier Hugo Ironside RIP

Kyt · Oct 6, 2008

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article4893797.ece

Hugo Ironside was taken prisoner in the first year of the war and spent the rest of it as a “guest of the Third Reich”, as it was sometimes ironically described, the final two years being in Colditz Castle in Saxony.

This was the prison for habitual escapers and Prominenten — persons whom the Germans believed might eventually be used as hostages. It is possible they thought that Ironside was related to the field marshal of that name, but there was no connection.

He was taken prisoner at Calais in May 1940, at the end of the desperate attempt to keep the port open for the evacuation of wounded and elements of the British Expeditionary Force in face of the German blitzkrieg. The 30th Infantry Brigade was hastily shipped from England and joined at sea by 3rd Royal Tank Regiment and an anti-tank battery of the Royal Artillery. It became clear before the force was fully disembarked that Calais was already cut off by General Heinz Guderian’s XIX Panzer Corps sweeping northeastwards towards Dunkirk.

Despite this forlorn outlook, the Commander of 30 Brigade was ordered by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Ironside’s namesake, to remain where he was and “in an active manner”. The brigade subsequently held off an immensely superior German force for several days with great gallantry until forced to surrender. Ironside was the Intelligence Officer of 3rd Royal Tanks when taken prisoner and, gesturing towards the distant white cliffs of Dover, said to a German officer, “I expect you will be heading that way next.” “Oh no,” came the reply. “Next we are going to Russia.” (In May 1940 the German could only have been joking).

After staging in various prisoner-of-war camps, Ironside arrived at Oflag VII B at Eichstätt in Bavaria. The camp had a well-organised escape planning and co-ordination committee, and 65 prisoners, Ironside among them, escaped through a tunnel on the night of June 3, 1943. All were recaptured within two weeks because of the deployment of no less than 50,000 German troops, police, Volkssturm and Hitler Youth to search for them. The recaptured prisoners were sent to Oflag IV C at Colditz.

Ironside and others of the “Eichstätt mob”, as the escapers from Oflag VII B had been nicknamed by the British inmates of Colditz, were taken into the confidence of the Polish group of prisoners, who had been working for several months on a tunnel down an inside wall to the castle main sewer through which they planned to escape. He and other former Eichstätt prisoners worked with the Poles on the tunnel, but the Belgian, Dutch and Polish prisoners were all moved to other camps before an escape through the tunnel could be attempted.

A remark by a Dutch officer, Captain Machiel van den Heuvel, to the British escape co-ordinator, Captain Dick Howe, as he left the castle captures the feisty spirit of the Colditz prisoners. “Dick,” he said. “You must always give them (the German jailers) hell, so that they respect you and are afraid to bully. If you do not do so you are finished.” When the French prisoners left later, they handed their secret radio on to the British contingent.

From the winter of 1943 Ironside worked with the prisoners’ stage productions, first helping to build the sets and then as stage manager. The prison authorities were tolerant of these activities, believing that they kept the inmates from trying to escape. Castle workshop tools were allowed out “on parole”, and greasepaint allowed in. As well as revues on camp life, Gaslight, The Man Who Came to Dinner and The Importance of Being Earnest were staged for the enjoyment of all the prisoners — and some of the German staff. Ironside was released when Colditz was relieved by the US Army in April 1945 and returned to his life as a professional soldier. Like other former Colditz prisoners, he made a success of it.

Hugo Craster Wakeford Ironside was educated at St Edward’s School, Oxford, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from where he was commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment in 1938. After his release from Colditz, he undertook a conventional career with alternate staff and regimental appointments, serving principally with the British Army of the Rhine. He took command of 8th Royal Tank Regiment in Fallingbostel in 1958 and, in the words of the adjutant at the time, “gave a bit of style to what had become a rather prosaic affair”. He was also responsible for the amalgamation of the 8th with the 5th Royal Tanks in 1959 and was appointed OBE in 1960.

Later he served as a colonel in the War Office, as the Brigadier Royal Armoured Corps at HQ Western Command and retired in 1968 at the end of a brigadier’s appointment in the Ministry of Defence.

He was three times married. He is survived by his third wife, Jane (née O’Gorman), and a son and daughter from his first marriage.

Brigadier H. C. W. Ironside, OBE, Colditz veteran, was born on June 14, 1918. He died on October 3, 2008, aged 90
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YouTube - Eichstatt and Colditz - Hugo Ironside

Antipodean Andy · Oct 6, 2008

Must have been very strong mentally to make it through that long as a POW. RIP.

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