Brigadier John Prendergast RIP

Kyt · Mar 3, 2008

Brigadier John Prendergast - Telegraph

Brigadier John Prendergast, who has died aged 97, won a DSO and two MCs in an adventurous military career which spanned more than 30 years.

In May 1937 Prendergast was serving with the Tochi Scouts in North Waziristan. They were leading an advance on the village of Gariom with the objective of blowing up two of the towers as a punishment for harbouring the wily Fakir of Ipi when they came under heavy fire from rebel tribesmen.

Prendergast, with four platoons under his command, was ordered to take charge. As his small force moved up, they were halted along a lip in the ground.

The tribesmen, 300 yards away, concealed in ilex scrub, could cover every inch of open terrain that separated them and, as he tried to flatten his body into the dirt, the vicious crack of bullets flying past his head was so nerve-janglingly sharp that he had horrid visions of his brains being scattered by the next shot.

"This was terrible," he said later. "I was supposed to be a leader." At school, he had boxed against opponents much bigger than himself and had always believed that he was brave. Then the thought came back, "Well, lead then."

Terrified and with the awful feeling that his legs were made of rubber, he got to his feet, waved his puny revolver and tried to get a charge going.

In a split second, he was covered with dust from the bullets striking the ground at his feet. At the same instant, he saw stark fear in the nearest rifleman's eyes and knew that his men were not going to follow him.

He went to ground again, slid down from the lip and moved one of his platoons round to the left where it could give rapid covering fire from a more enfiladed position. Then, swearing at the other three platoons and getting bayonets fixed, he led them over the edge with a loud Pathan shout of "Halla, Halla." (Attack! Attack!)

Prendergast knew that his stout stature made him a marked man but zig-zagging, he and his Pathans tore across the intervening ground. Some of his men fell, but the tribesmen did not stop to face the bright line of bayonets bearing down on them so swiftly and took to their heels. Prendergast was awarded a Military Cross.

John Hume Prendergast, the younger son of Major General Charles Gordon Prendergast, was born at Lahore on November 15 1910. A performing troupe of monkeys that used to be taken around the British houses had been taught to salute the Union Jack.

When young John tried to teach his pet rhesus monkey to emulate them, raising its paw gently but repeatedly to its brow while holding up a little Union Jack, it turned scarlet in the face and bit off the tip of his finger.

Prendergast was educated at Victoria College, Jersey, and was commissioned into the Special Reserve in 1929. He was posted to 2nd Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment in Karachi and, after taking a Regular Commission in 4/15th Punjab Regiment, he was seconded to the North Waziristan Transborder Armed Police (Tochi Scouts).

Shortly after he won his first MC he was leading a relief column when he was ambushed. He had two carrier pigeons with him and he decided to dispatch them to HQ with an urgent appeal for help.

Crouched in a ditch, with fumbling fingers he wrote out the message, rolled it into tubes and attached it to the pigeons' legs. The two messengers flew a short distance, settled on a rock and started cooing lovingly at each other.

In desperation, Prendergast raised himself from his hiding place and hurled pebbles at them while praying that nobody would shoot him. At last they flew off and within an hour an RAF Wapiti came over and routed the rebels.

In 1940 he took part in the campaign in Norway on attachment to the Irish Guards. Within a short time of disembarking at Mosjoen and after five hours trudging through the snow he laid an ambush for the Germans.

Trapped between a cliff and a reservoir, the enemy sustained losses of more than 50 at the cost of one British soldier. Prendergast was awarded a Bar to his MC.

After the withdrawal to England Prendergast returned to India to take up an appointment as instructor in mountain warfare at the Poona Tactical School. He then raised and commanded 1st Western Tribal Legion, but the irregulars proved unreliable and were subsequently disbanded.

He was then posted to 1/15th Punjab Regiment (1/15 PR) as second in command and took part in the Arakan campaign. There, as he said afterwards, he lived like a prairie dog, never more than a leap from his fox-hole where he could take cover from the incessant air and artillery bombardment.

After a spell in a Calcutta hospital with malaria, he rejoined 1/15 PR for the forced crossing of the Irrawaddy, for which he was mentioned in dispatches, the advance to Mandalay and the Japanese base at Meiktila.

Prendergast was then given command of 3/6th Rajputana Rifles, part of 19th Indian Division. With the capture of Rangoon in May 1945, their role consisted largely of mopping up operations, a process which took almost a year.

The citation for the award of his DSO paid tribute to his unfailing cheerfulness, courage and leadership in stubborn fighting in the arduous conditions of dense mountain jungle and a heavy monsoon.

In 1947, after attending Staff College at Quetta and Camberley, Prendergast transferred to the British Army and moved to Kabul, Afghanistan, as Defence Attaché.

He joined 1st York and Lancaster Regiment in BAOR in 1950, commanded them the following year and accompanied them to Khartoum and the Canal Zone.

Prendergast was posted to HQ 1 British Corps at Bielefeld in 1955 before promotion to brigadier upon taking command of TA147 Brigade in the Midlands.

After retiring from the Army, he became a successful restorer of old houses. This paid for many journeys to India and the Near East; he would leave in the autumn by motor-caravan and return when the snows on the high passes had melted enough to make travel possible.

Prendergast also enjoyed fly-fishing and painting and took an active part in voluntary work for the conservation of Indian wildlife. He was president of the 15th Punjab Association.

He published The Road to India (1977), a guide book, Prender's Progress (1979), an autobiography, and A Plume of Dust (1993), a travel book about Central Europe.

John Prendergast died on February 9. He married, in 1939, Rose Ann (Peggy) Hutchinson, the daughter of Henry Hutchinson, a former Postmaster General of India. She predeceased him and he is survived by their two sons and a daughter.
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spidge · Mar 3, 2008

At 97, he lived much longer than he should have!

Antipodean Andy · Mar 3, 2008

Lived through a lot. His books sound interesting. RIP.

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Brigadier John Prendergast RIP

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