Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Heaven RIP

Kyt · Mar 10, 2009

Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Heaven - Telegraph

Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Heaven, who has died aged 89, was the last officer-cadet to be awarded the Sword of Honour at the Royal Military Academy Woolwich before it closed in 1939, and was later awarded a Military Cross as a mountain battery commander in Italy.

In November 1943 Heaven landed at Naples with 479 Light Battery, which had 3.7in guns that split into eight pieces to be transported by mules. These (he recalled in his memoirs) were beautiful, placid, broad-backed beasts, which were drilled to prepare for action by standing in a circle looking outwards, with a smaller, pivot mule at the centre. The unit would march six days a week between dawn and around 6pm, halting every two hours for a 20-minute break. The animals would then be unloaded and watered, have their girths slackened and their hooves inspected for repair, if necessary, by the farrier sergeant using a portable anvil.

Though the battery trailed well behind the front-line troops as it marched north, it none the less amazed infantry battalions it passed by its average speed of five miles an hour and the way the animals held their heads down with their ears flopping backwards and forwards in a way that suggested a happy acceptance of their lot.

Heaven proved an efficient officer, refusing to allow the men to drink water before lunch because it made them drowsy, and not letting officers ride unless they were sick or checking the rear of the column. He was involved in several skirmishes with stragglers from the retreating German army before he earned his MC supporting some Gurkhas on August 26 1944, near Bologna.

The action took place on a hill that was the Gurkhas' headquarters, which had little more than one depleted company. As the brr-brr of German machine guns drew closer, Heaven agreed to start continuous firing, but finally had to turn to the Gurkha colonel, saying he could do no more to hold off the enemy. "At that moment we heard whoops and cries and shouts of joy," Heaven recalled, "and up the hill came these two Gurkha companies with their kukris out. I have never seen such alarm and dismay in the German faces before or since, and there were very few of them left alive."

As a tiny Gurkha ran towards him, waving a kukri streaming with blood, the colonel said: "Don't worry, Richard, he is just telling you he has killed three German soldiers. He has been bloodied, it is the first time he has done it, and he is going to carve three notches on his kukri. And what a splendid warrior he is."

According to his MC citation, Heaven "performed services with his battery in intimate support of infantry of the very highest order. He has himself been constantly under shellfire at observation posts and in forward positions; and has continued to direct the work of his observation posts and his guns to the best possible effect."

Richard John Gyde Heaven was born on July 9 1919 in Bristol, the son of a solicitor whose family had owned Lundy Island from 1836 to 1917.

After his father's early death he was educated at Clifton, where he captained the 1st XV and played in the 1st XI at cricket. He was also a senior rover Scout, and remembered having tea with Lord Baden-Powell in 1937, on the 25th anniversary of the founding of the school's troop.

Heaven then captained the 1st XI cricket team and excelled at boxing and rugby at Woolwich before being commissioned into the Royal Artillery. He was on a course at Larkhill, where the declaration of war was greeted by cheers in the mess.

Following a posting to 456 Light Battery for training in Scotland, he landed at Algiers as part of 78th Division of the First Army in November 1942, and was in action a week later supporting the Royal West Kents and Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

When the Germans mounted a strong attack on Sedjenane the following March, Heaven's battery supported the 2nd/5th Sherwood Foresters until the guns ran out of ammunition and the order was given by the battery commander to "spike guns" so they could not be captured by the enemy. Five days later he was promoted major and took command of his battery.

After eight months' battle experience in Tunisia he landed on the southern tip of Sicily, where he had a successful rendezvous in front of a lighthouse. After three sleepless nights, however, he overslept and missed an appointment with his superior, who told him: "My dear Heaven, you can't go to sleep in the middle of a battle." After the war Heaven had several postings in east Africa. He was on the staff at Sandhurst and served in Germany for six years before retiring from Larkhill in 1971.

He then started a successful trout farming enterprise with his three sons and his son-in-law.

Richard Heaven died on January 10. He married, in 1942, Peggy Loring, who survives him with their five children.
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Antipodean Andy · Mar 10, 2009

What an interesting career and an enduring legacy. I had heard of the mule-carried guns but never read about them in action in Italy. Brave animals no doubt.

RIP.

spidge · Mar 11, 2009

Not meant to be trivial of course but many of these lads had one interesting war!

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