Major-General Corran Purdon obituary

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-07-06/register/major-general-corran-purdon-obituary-hhzdfrqkq

Fitness-addicted commando who won an MC in the ‘Greatest Raid of All’, was imprisoned at Colditz and filmed with Jeremy Clarkson

Major-General Corran Purdon was injured during the St Nazaire raid

Corran Purdon seldom spoke about the two events that came to define his military career: the audacious commando raid on the Nazi-held French port of St Nazaire in 1942, dubbed “the Greatest Raid of All”, and his subsequent year-long imprisonment at the infamous Colditz castle.
If pressed he would cite the bravery or endurance of someone who had shared the dangers or deprivation with him, while playing down the MC he was awarded for the former role.
Operation Chariot, as the St Nazaire raid was officially called, was meticulously planned by the Combined Operations staff regarding deception measures and demolition of the huge dry dock, yet they underestimated the Wehrmacht’s ability to react with violent offensive action, even when taken by surprise. In consequence the demolition parties were unable to escape after completing their mission.

The purpose was to destroy the dry dock, denying its use by the German battleship Tirpitz, whose 15-inch guns posed a threat to Allied shipping in the western Atlantic. The Tirpitz lay in a Norwegian fjord from which she could emerge only if an alternative refuge was available on the French coast. St Nazaire offered that facility.
The British plan involved the antiquated destroyer HMS Campbeltown, altered to make her outline resemble a German destroyer. Her bows were packed with high-explosive to destroy the heavily defended lock gates after she had rammed them. In addition, demolition parties aboard and in accompanying vessels were to rush ashore and blow up the dock winding gear.

The raid took place on the night of March 28/29, 1942. Purdon was a subaltern with the Commando force aboard Campbeltown in charge of one of the demolition parties. They rushed ashore as soon as the ship struck the lock gates and placed their charges, but when he and other survivors of the retaliatory fire returned to the mole, all the Fairmile motor launches due to take them off had been sunk by German defensive fire or were in flames.
In his autobiography List the Bugle: reminiscences of an Irish soldier (1993) Purdon described how he and his men attempted to fight their way out of the town.
“A hail of enemy fire erupted as we crossed the bridge, projectiles slamming into its girders, bullets whining and ricocheting off them and from the cobbles. One of the latter burst at my feet and the explosion, combined with my own forward velocity, lifted me clean off the ground, wounding me in the left leg and shoulder. I could feel my left battledress trouser leg wet with blood, but beyond a sense of numbness my leg still worked and I quickly forgot about it. A German motorcycle combination came flying round the corner. I pumped several rounds into the occupants who crashed, dead, into a wall.”

CARLOS SÝNCHEZ

The dock gates were rammed as planned, but the delayed-fuse explosion of the Campbeltown’s bows did not occur until the next day, causing the death of many German servicemen and technical experts who had boarded her. The St Nazaire dock was put out of action for the rest of the war and the Tirpitz disabled by midget submarines in Norwegian waters in September 1943 and sunk by the RAF in November 1944.
While in a French hospital receiving treatment for his wounds, Purdon wrote a letter to his father explaining what had occurred and asked a nurse to post it. Addressed to Major-General W B Purdon in the neutral Irish republic, it reached its destination safely. On recovery he was sent to a prison camp at Schloss Spangenberg near Kassel, from where he and fellow commando Richard Morgan planned an escape involving only themselves.
They were detailed to collect a pannier of costumes for a camp play from the guardroom outside the castle walls and return it afterwards. On the third night of the play they put the pannier down while the escort was locking the castle gate behind them and dived down a path that led in the direction of woodland encircling the castle. As neither spoke German and they were wearing British uniform, they planned to trek by night through open country to Belgium and seek help from a resistance group at a memorised address. On the ninth night they walked on to a German railway platform during an air-raid when all lights were doused, hoping to board a freight train. The lighting came on suddenly, leading to their recapture and return to Spangenberg.

HMS Campbeltown rammed St Nazaire’s dockGETTY IMAGES

Later, the pair became involved in the Spangenberg escape tunnel, but this was discovered and they were sent to Oflag IV-C, better known as Colditz, reserved for the most determined escapers, including Douglas Bader. He joined a team working on a tunnel there, but remained a prisoner until the arrival of the US army on April 16, 1945.
Keen to resume his career, he rejoined his regiment, the Royal Ulster Rifles, known as the Stickies, with the 6th Airborne Division in Palestine, taking part in riot control and antiterrorist operations in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. After Staff College in 1955 he joined GHQ Ear East Land Forces in Singapore, yet slipped away from his desk to take part in operations against communist terrorists in the Malayan jungle.
Appointed commanding officer of the Stickies in 1964, he took them to the Far East in preparation for operations in Borneo, where Indonesian president Sukarno’s “confrontation” to the Federation of Malaysia involved armed incursions across the border. His service there led to his command of the Sultan of Oman’s Armed Forces as a brigadier. He was appointed CBE for this service and twice decorated for gallantry by the sultan.
Corran William Brooke Purdon was born in Queenstown, Co Cork, son of Major-General W B Purdon, late Royal Army Medical Corps, and educated at Campbell College, Belfast, and Sandhurst from where he was commissioned into the Royal Ulster Rifles in 1939. He became known for his quietly spoken address, unfailing courtesy and concentration on physical fitness.

Purdon, right, led by example in keeping physically fitTimes Newspapers Ltd

He married Patricia Petrie, a major’s daughter, in 1945 and they had two sons and a daughter: Patrick, who ran an events company in Los Angeles but died there ten years ago from a heart attack having just completed a charity ride on his Harley-Davidson; Tim, who commanded the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards; and Angela, who worked for Vogue magazine in Paris, but has now returned to the UK. His first wife predeceased him and in 2009 he married Jean Otway, widow of his cousin Lieutenant-Colonel Terence Otway. She and the younger son and daughter of his first marriage survive him.
On his return from Oman, he was appointed commandant of the School of Infantry at Warminster, where he became widely known for his resolute physical fitness, with many of the staff following his example. In 1974 he became GOC Near East Land Forces, based in Cyprus, and retired in 1976. On return to the UK, in addition to his work as a commander of St John Ambulance he was a governor of the Royal Humane Society.
In 2007 he appeared in a documentary made by Jeremy Clarkson for the BBC called The Greatest Raid of All Time. Still doing 50 press-ups a day well into his 80s, he lived in Devizes, Wiltshire, in retirement. There he liked to walk around the town hoping to come by chance across a robbery in progress so that he could become involved and make a citizen’s arrest.
Major-General C W B Purdon, CBE, MC, CPM, veteran of the St Nazaire raid, was born on May 4, 1921. He died on June 27, 2018, aged 97