Lieutenant-Colonel Douggie Moir RIP

Kyt · May 10, 2008

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1942625/Lieutenant-Colonel-Douggie-Moir.html

Lieutenant-Colonel Douggie Moir, who died on May 6 aged 89, was taken prisoner in 1940 and made a series of escape attempts from German PoW camps, including Colditz.

Moir was commissioned from Sandhurst into the Royal Tank Corps, later the Royal Tank Regiment (RTR), and was a troop leader in 3RTR, part of 30th Infantry Brigade, during the desperate rearguard action to hold Calais. Then a lieutenant, he was captured together with most of the brigade and imprisoned in Stalag VIIC at Laufen, Germany. Later, when he was being moved by cattle-truck to Warburg, he and a brother officer squeezed through a hatch window and jumped clear of the moving train.

They were at large for several days, but were then given away by a local and returned to Warburg. Moir was soon assisting in the planning for another escape attempt, which involved some 60 officers scaling the perimeter wire with makeshift ladders while fellow prisoners fused the lights and created distractions to confuse the guards.

He and two fellow prisoners managed to cross the strongly-fortified river Danube, some 200 miles away, and remained at liberty for nine days before they were eventually recaptured. Moir was moved to Oflag VIIB, near Eichstätt, where he used a period in solitary confinement to make new plans.

Moir and two Canadian officers made an improvised rope out of sheets and climbed down 90ft from the window of the schloss in which they were held. They negotiated the hazardous descent safely, but were spotted by a German patrol and returned to solitary confinement.

It was not long before Moir's reputation resulted in his being transferred to Oflag IVC at Colditz, where he joined the elite group of professional escapers. He learned that the town gaol, to which recaptured escapers were almost invariably dispatched, had lax security, and he contrived to be captured during an "escape" attempt. Unfortunately for him, he was not locked up in the gaol but given a period of "solitary" in Colditz.

There Moir perfected his skills as a lock-picker and subsequently assisted in the assembly of the famous glider in the attic of the castle, an outrageously daring venture which the arrival of the Americans in April 1945 made redundant. The senior British officer at Colditz reported afterwards that Moir's own audacious schemes did not prevent his giving wholehearted help to others with their preparations for escape. The resolution, courage and resourcefulness that he showed during nearly five years in captivity were recognised by a mention in dispatches in 1946.

Douglas Norman Moir was born on August 24 1918. His father was a civil engineer working in Basra, and his mother had to travel to India for the birth. The young Douggie returned to England for his schooling and was educated at Kelly College, Tavistock, Devon, where he excelled at rugby, athletics and swimming – activities which were to stand him in good stead 10 years later on his unofficial "exeats" from prison camp.

After the war Moir commanded a squadron of 7RTR, equipped with Stuart tanks and Fox armoured cars, on internal security operations at Amritsar during Partition. In 1958 he was selected to command the Royal Armoured Corps' Junior Leader organisation.

It was a daunting task which might have defeated a lesser man, for its future camp was no more than a building site; but Moir's blend of foresight and drive, and engaging nature produced high-quality young soldiers, and the building work was completed on schedule.

A spell as armoured adviser to the Jordanian army followed in 1961, and Moir then moved to Cologne as liaison officer to the Belgian Corps. After a final appointment on the AQ staff at Shrivenham, where he learned to play golf, he retired from the Army in 1969.

Moir and his wife established a guest house in a former vicarage overlooking Lydford Gorge, Devon. It proved a most successful undertaking, owing much to her charm and efficiency as a hostess and to his handyman skills, honed in prison. His duties, however, were not so onerous that they kept him from his fishing. In 1982 he finally retired to Tavistock, where he had been at school 50 years earlier.

Douggie Moir married, in 1945, Phyllis Wells, who survives him with their two daughters.
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Lieutenant-Colonel Douggie Moir RIP

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