Major David Liddell

May 7 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

DAVID LIDDELL, of the 12th Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), was in command of a company which was ordered to capture the village of Villa Grande, on Italy’s Adriatic coast, which was held by the fearful German 1st Parachute Regiment, on December 23, 1943.

The leading British platoon suffered severe casualties and Liddell’s company was pinned down by heavy machine-gun fire. Liddell charged the machine-gun post single-handed and knocked it out with hand grenades. Although wounded in the eye, he led his men’s advance to link with other isolated platoons. He wore gym shoes to report to his CO, so as not to be heard by the Germans in the next building, and refused to be evacuated until his men were moved to safety and were fed. Awarded an immediate Military Cross, he was just 26.

Major Liddell, who has died, aged 91, was born in Hankow, China. The son of a merchant, he moved to Shanghai and attended school with the future ballerina Margot Fonteyn and author Mary Hayley Bell (later to marry John Mills). A talented musician and sportsman, at Harrow School he boxed and led the school orchestra.

Training as a chartered accountant, he joined a Lloyd’s broking firm and on the outbreak of war with the Scottish Rifles assisted in the detention of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, when the former landed at Hamilton Racecourse, Scotland.

Posted to the Faroe Islands in 1941, his battalion was ordered to reinforce the Eighth Army fighting its way up Italy. After treatment for his injuries sustained when he won his MC, he returned to the fray and was sheltering in a cowshed on his 27th birthday when it was hit by a direct shell. Three of his comrades were killed and he was severely wounded, needing many months of hospital care.

After the war, he returned to London stock-broking and became a member of Lloyds, but his war wounds forced retirement from the city in 1967. Inheriting a Monmouthshire estate, he turned to Friesian cattle breeding with great national success. He and his wife, Joan, became passionate about fishing and hence moved to the Highlands, but heavy losses at Lloyd’s forced a return south.

Major David Liddell MC, soldier and cattle-breeder; born, January 9, 1917,died, May, 2008