Richard Austin James RIP

Kyt · Nov 12, 2008

Jimmy James - Telegraph

Jimmy James, who has died aged 88, won the Military Cross in 1943 during the battle for the island of Leros and subsequently became deputy under-secretary of state at the Home Office.

In November 1943, following a German attack on the Aegean island of Leros, 2nd Battalion The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment (2 QORWK) was put ashore to reinforce the defenders. On November 15 James, the intelligence officer, was part of the reconnaissance group which was following up a company attack on Rachi Ridge, near Leros town, when they were held up by snipers firing from houses lining the road.

James ran forward under fire and found a secure position from which the group could observe the attack. Then, with a private from the Intelligence Section, he cleared the houses and disposed of the snipers. For his gallantry, he was awarded an MC.

The Allied forces on Leros surrendered on November 16 and James became a PoW. After being moved to mainland Greece, he ended up in an interrogation camp near Berlin. The Germans evidently believed he had valuable information and he underwent repeated interrogations and punitive spells of solitary confinement.

James gave nothing away other than his name, rank and number and with the passage of time whatever operational intelligence he might have had ceased to have value and the interrogations ceased.

Richard Austin James was born on May 26 1920 at Sutton Valence School, Kent, where his father was headmaster. He went on to Clifton College before taking a traineeship with British American Tobacco. In March 1939 he joined a TA unit of the Royal Engineers, where he acquired his nickname, and went to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force.

Evacuated from Dunkirk in a small boat in June 1940, he passed through one of the Kent railway stations where, with hundreds of other women, his mother was passing out tea and sandwiches to the exhausted soldiers. They missed each other and it was only later that his parents learned of his safe repatriation.

After several months in a sapper company working on London's defences, in May 1941 James was commissioned. He served in Malta from July that year until June 1943, a period when the island experienced more than 2000 air-raids. He was twice mentioned in dispatches for actions in the Grand Harbour and on Luqa airfield.

Following the lifting of the siege, James trained with 2 QORWK in Egypt, Palestine and the Lebanon in preparation for the Dodecanese campaign. After his incarceration in the interrogation camp, he was moved to Czechoslovakia before being transferred to Oflag 79 in Brunswick, northern Germany.

Conditions at the camp were often harsh but, whatever their own privations, James and his comrades never forgot the brutality with which Russian PoWs in an adjoining camp were treated. In captivity, the prisoners planned to set up a youth club after the war. A prospectus was drafted and the then substantial sum of £13,000 collected in cheques and pledges. The project, named the Brunswick Club, eventually went ahead at a site in Fulham and the Duke of Edinburgh opened the club in July 1949. James was a founding trustee and eventually became president.

He returned to England, reduced to six stone in weight, and was demobilised in 1946. After graduating in Economics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he secured a top place in the Civil Service Examinations, and was accepted by the Home Office. He later recalled waiting anxiously and with dwindling funds to be told when to start. On making a timid inquiry, he was told, somewhat tetchily, "Oh, all right. Start next Monday."

By 1960 James was private secretary to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Lord Hill, and subsequently to Iain Macleod.

He was deputy receiver for the Metropolitan Police District from 1970 to 1973 and assistant under-secretary of state at the Home Office from 1974 to 1976. In 1977 he returned to Scotland Yard as receiver for the Metropolitan Police District. There he served with Sir David McNee, with whom he established close ties.

James retired in 1980 in the rank of deputy under-secretary of state at the Home Office and was appointed CB. He became for a spell the chief executive officer of the Distressed Gentlefolks' Aid Association and an interest in supported housing involved him in the work of similar bodies.

His retirement years were spent at Buxted, East Sussex, and at Thame, Oxfordshire. In both places he was a consistent participant in community, charity and church affairs. A devoted Anglican, he drew much strength from his beliefs.

Jimmy James married, in 1948, Joan Boorer, with whom he had two sons and a daughter.
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Antipodean Andy · Nov 12, 2008

What a life of service. Possible that he was heavily involved in the repairs to Luqa Airfield which was often a neverending task of filling in craters only to watch more being made. The Army units did magnificent work keeping the airfields operational.

The invasion of Leros and the other Dodecanese islands by the Allies was not terribly successful but was pushed for mainly by Churchill apparently. Air superiority was never really established and fighter support was largely supplied by Beaufighters which didn't have much time to loiter anyway and were also supposed to be hitting surface traffic as well.

RIP.

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