Colonel the Reverend 'Sam' Davies RIP

Kyt · Mar 18, 2009

Colonel the Reverend 'Sam' Davies - Telegraph

Colonel the Reverend 'Sam' Davies, who has died aged 91, was chaplain of the 1st Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment, during its heroic stand against Chinese forces at the Imjin river during the Korean War; he then exercised a notably courageous ministry in a camp at Pi-chonig-in on the North Korean-Manchurian border.

On April 22 1951 the "Glorious Glosters" were thinly deployed as part of United Nations forces on a front along the river as the enemy steadily approached. Davies conducted a traditional St George's Day service a day early for the nearby 5th Fusiliers, then returned to hold a Holy Communion service attended by many of the men soon to be killed. As reports of Chinese elements harrying their rear echelon crackled over the wireless in the afternoon, he remembered thinking about Gloucester, 11,000 miles away, and how he longed to say "stop" as the minutes before the impending clash rushed by.

Once the attack started in earnest, however, Davies was in the thick of the fighting, ministering to the wounded, praying with the dying and helping to recover the bodies of the fallen. When the battalion occupied a ridge, subsequently known as Gloucester Hill, the men were heartened by their bugler's series of regular calls countering the dissonant blare of Chinese assault trumpets as every new attack was pressed home. But by the third day, it was clear that the promised relief was not coming. Unable to break through the encirclement, the survivors – led by Lieutenant-Colonel James Carne, who was awarded the VC for his part in the battle – surrendered.

Davies and the medical officer elected to go into captivity with the wounded. The chaplain remarked: "This looks like a holiday in Peking for some of us."

The bloody action enabled the main Chinese attack on the South Korean capital, Seoul, to be stemmed. But for the 370 captured British and Americans it meant a 600-mile march over six months to the Pi-chonig-in camp, mainly undertaken at night to avoid detection by UN aircraft. On first being interrogated Davies was contemptuously informed that the Chinese had "no Geneva Convention" and that British soldiers had been duped by American imperialists. But his spirits were lifted when his dog collar and stock, which had been lost, were recovered by his batman from the neck of a Korean soldier.

The Chinese were purported to pursue a "lenient" policy, with the aim keeping the prisoners alive and fit enough to be indoctrinated with communism. This involved a daily programme of lengthy, tedious lectures, study groups and written work on the "virtues" of Marxism and the "evils" of capitalism. Conditions were harsh, and for some months the authorities even refused to accept Davies's status as a chaplain. At Christmas, however, facilities were provided for the celebration of the festival, including religious services. A loaf of bread and a bottle of wine were supplied for Holy Communion, but this was exceptional and only four more Holy Communions were permitted during the next two years.

A regular Sunday non-sacramental service was allowed in a hut normally used for lectures and adorned with pictures of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and other communist leaders. Colonel Carne took the opportunity to carve from Korean stone a small Celtic cross, which became the focus of the worship and was incorporated into the regimental memorial chapel in Gloucester Cathedral after the war.

Bibles and prayer books were not permitted, so lavatory paper and cigarette papers were used for improvised texts. Although all services had to be censored, each one ended with: "Faith of our fathers, living still/In spite of dungeons, fire and sword".

But Davies was not permitted to visit the prisoners who were not officers. And although he was for a time able to minister to sick prisoners held in an isolated house, and even secretly to baptise six Americans and prepare 19 Britons and Americans for confirmation, this was soon stopped.

Protests about these and other restrictions led to interrogations for a wide variety of infringements, which included not paying attention to a lecture on American imperialism. Davies's explanation that he had not been listening because he had other interests than American history was met with a moment of silence. Then the order came: "You will pay attention. You must correct your attitude."

"I confess my crime," Davies replied in a ponderous voice.

More serious, he was charged with "using religious services as pretext for political activity", a claim he strenuously denied. But he still ended up on two weeks of solitary confinement in a 6ft by 4ft cell. He and Anthony Farrar-Hockley, the Gloucesters' adjutant, who was in the cell next door, developed a code of knocks, and quietly recited the Lord's Prayer together at night. If prison camp life was tough, he told his children in later life, it gave him the stoicism to have a tooth removed with nothing but a penknife.

Eventually, in September 1953, Davies was in the final batch of prisoners to be released. On his return to England he was appointed MBE (Military). A coded account of dates and places, which he had scribbled on prison lavatory paper and had been smuggled out by an American officer, provided the basis for his best-selling In Spite of Dungeons. He wrote this memoir partly because he was the only one of four chaplains imprisoned to survive.

The son of a sailor, Stanley James Davies, always known as Sam, was born on March 2 1918, and went to Allsop High School, Liverpool. He read Theology and prepared for Holy Orders at St Chad's College, Durham, where he won the quarter-mile two years in a row. He then was a curate in Liverpool and Wigan for two years before joining the Royal Army Chaplains' Department, with which he spent 28 years.

After returning from Korea, Davies resumed his duties as a regimental chaplain, earning promotion to Deputy Assistant Chaplain General in 1966. Two years later he was appointed chaplain of the Guards Chapel in London. In 1970 he became Assistant Chaplain General, BAOR, with responsibility for all chaplaincy work, and Queen's Honorary Chaplain in 1972.

On leaving the Army he became rector of the small rural parish of Uley with Owlpen and Nympsfield in Gloucestershire, where he maintained his strong links with the Gloucesters. He also stayed in touch with the Anglican Church in Korea.

Sam Davies, who died on March 15, married, in 1954, Anne Valentine; she survives him with their son and daughter.
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liverpool annie · Mar 18, 2009

There are just some padres you can't help but love !!

RIP Sam ......

Believed to be alive - Google Book Search

Rev. Sam Davies when he met HRH The Duchess of Gloucester
Padre to the Glosters at the Imjin, Sam stayed behind to care for the wounded and endured a Korean prison camp

Antipodean Andy · Mar 18, 2009

A strong man in more ways than one. RIP.

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Colonel the Reverend 'Sam' Davies RIP

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