Sir Peter Laurence RIP

Kyt · Dec 5, 2007

Sir Peter Laurence - Telegraph

Sir Peter Laurence, who died on November 26 aged 84, was serving as a diplomat in Berlin in 1968 when his nephew spotted a two-page picture story in a children's comic recounting how he won the MC in Italy during the Second World War.

The boy, who was home from Marlborough, told his parents - who then informed Laurence of this unusual piece of publicity in The Victor. In the first frame Lieutenant Laurence of the 11th Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps, was shown wondering whether the enemy was occupying an isolated house, known as "The Apostle", near Ponte in December 1943. Then, in broad daylight, he and a Corporal Angus crept up close, to find themselves under fire from a hole in the wall. "You spray the windows while I pop a visiting card through the hole," Laurence was shown saying, before he threw in a grenade and Angus fired his tommy gun up at the first-floor window.

Simultaneously the remainder of his platoon opened up on the other side of the house with two Bren guns, also putting down two-inch mortar fire which enabled the two men to withdraw. "It was indeed one of those rare occasions in war when everything went according to plan," commented the caption below the final frame.

Having developed such a sure technique Laurence went on to use it again. Charged with raiding a house near Vasetti on the night April 18/19 1944, he manoeuvred his patrol to within 10 yards without attracting the attention of the sentries, then fired a Piat (projector infantry anti-tank weapon) before going forward alone.

Finding the ground floor entrance barred, he climbed up to enter by an upper floor window. As he prised open a trap door, enemy machine guns opened up from three directions at close quarters, sending two bursts straight through the room.

Laurence called out for the Piat to be handed up to him so that he could engage one of the German positions. When this proved impossible, he carefully recorded the exact positions of the enemy, and returned to his patrol.

Two nights later he raided another house, shooting two sentries, then hit the building with three Piat bombs. Withdrawing his men about 100 yards, he went forward again from a new direction, even though Very lights were illuminating the ground, to fire his last Piat bomb and direct his Brens on to the enemy before bringing out invaluable information about the enemy defences.

During these operations, his citation declared, "This officer has shown outstanding qualities of leadership."

Laurence's last taste of action was when his regiment was sent to Greece, where a void left by the Germans' withdrawal was being filled by a bitter civil war. As the British entered Athens every crossroads seemed to come under sniper and machine-gun fire until the situation was finally brought under control in Constitution Square, where Laurence was slightly hurt in the leg by shrapnel; two of his fellow officers were killed.

The son of a Dean of Leicester, Peter Harold Laurence was born on February 18 1923 and won a Classics scholarship to Radley, where he fenced and played the piano before going into the 60th Rifles.

After the war he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, where he came top in the entrance exam for the Foreign Office, which insisted he join straight away without waiting to obtain his expected First. Laurence's postings were to reflect the growing awareness of the Cold War. He was first sent to Athens, where the civil war had ended, and then became an assistant political adviser in Trieste, still under an uneasy four-power administration.

His next posting was Prague, where he was arrested counting tanks in the Tatra mountains and was even considered a target for espionage. But a report in the files of the StB, the Czech security service (which believed he had been in the Royal Navy), declared that Laurence had "huge self-discipline" and was "in no way the kind of person who could be swayed by pressure".

His career took a different turn after the Suez crisis when he was sent to Cairo; although he knew no Arabic, he got by with his French. A spell as a political adviser in Berlin, still administered by four powers, was followed by a year as a visiting fellow at All Souls, Oxford, where he wrote a technical book on Ostpolitik.

Laurence then became an inspector of diplomatic posts before achieving a long-standing ambition by ending his career as ambassador to Turkey.

A fluent Turkish speaker, he arrived in Ankara in 1980, in time to see a period of familiar turbulence leading to the establishment of a military government. His posting was made easier by the friendship he established with a former diplomat who was appointed foreign minister by the generals.

Peter Laurence was appointed CMG in 1976 and KCMG in 1981.

On retiring he moved to Devon, where he took on a host of unpaid tasks. He was chairman of the Community Council of Devon, a member of the council of Exeter University and of the Exeter Cathedral Music Trust, which helped to raise money to save the organ and choir.

He was also custos of Grenville College, Bideford, and chairman of the Council of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. He was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Devon in 1989.

Peter Laurence married, in 1948, Elizabeth Way, with whom he had two sons, and a daughter who predeceased him.

Among Laurence's sterling qualities as a diplomat was his sharp eye for potential embarrassments. When his eldest son, Charles, arrived in Ankara as The Daily Telegraph's correspondent in the 1980s he was informed that he would be welcome at the embassy - after he had completed his journalistic work.
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spidge · Dec 5, 2007

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Sir Peter Laurence RIP

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