A COLLECTION OF PERSONAL EFFECTS BELONGING TO INVETERATE COL...

Peter Storie-Pugh CBE (MBE) MC TD DL

When Peter Storie-Pugh died, in 2011, he was the last man alive, in the world, to be sent to Colditz Castle in 1940.

He went to war in May 1940 as a Lieutenant in the 6th Battalion Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment and was awarded the Military Cross in May 1940 at the battle of Doullens; where

he was severely wounded. His helmet has the dent caused by falling masonry during the battle. Captured, he was taken to Bapaume Military Hospital, from where he soon escaped.

Recaptured on his 21st birthday 11.11.1940, he was sent to Spangenburg Castle in the Harz Mountains. Other PoWs there at the same time included Airey Neave and later Major Bruce

Shand, the Queen’s father. Peter Storie-Pugh escaped from Spangenberg and the author found the bridge under which he hid during this escape. However, he was recaptured at the railway

station, beaten up and then taken to Colditz Castle. He is credited with being involved in 21 escapes attempts, one through the sewers, another through the attic walls and another over the

roof. He was liberated on 16th April 1945 by the Americans and subsequently was awarded the MBE (Mil) for gallantry in Colditz. He held no hostility towards his captors whatsoever and

indeed described the Head of Security Hauptman Eggers, as “fair minded, cunning but punctilious” During his captivity he passed his BA in Humanities, from Cambridge University, literally

a correspondence course, and he also devised a code to MI9 from inside Colditz which was never broken.

After the war Peter Storie-Pugh returned to Queen’s College Cambridge from where he obtained a first-class degree, a rarity in those days, joined to Cambridgeshire Regiment (Territorial Army) and started setting up a farm of pigs and sheep at Tyrells Hall near Cambridge. This farming experience sat neatly with his studies to become a veterinary surgeon and subsequently a don at Cambridge. Astonishingly, he would go on to command the 1st Battalion the Cambridgeshire Regiment, of which her Late Majesty, The Queen was Colonel in Chief, then the amalgamated 1st Bn Suffolk and Cambridgeshire Regiment of which Princess Margaret was the Colonel in Chief and he was appointed Deputy Commander 161 Infantry Brigade (the famous brigade that defended Kohima Ridge in April 1944). On his veterinary side, he was appointed President of the British Veterinary Association the President of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and finally set up EuroVet, the European body overseeing good veterinary practice. He was a Commissioner in Brussels for 10 years advising on the European Veterinary matters.

He married Alison Lyle, who he met at The West Kent Hunt, in 1946. She was the daughter of Sir Oliver Lyle OBE, Head of Lyles Golden Syrup.

Peter Storie-Pugh died in 2011 in France, where he had settled with his second family (Alison died in 1998) obituaries appeared in The Time and The Daily Telegraph; and The Daily Mail did an extensive article on him a few months before he died – this being the last interview of any kind he gave.