Major Allison D Tatham-Warter DSO

75060. Major. Allison Digby Tatham-Warter.

‘A’ Company, 2nd Parachute Battalion.

Allison Digby Tatham-Warter (always known as Digby to his friends) was born on the 26 May 1917 and came from Shropshire.

Educated at Wellington and Sandhurst (where he won The Saddle) he was the second son of Henry de Grey Tatham-Warter, a country landowner with estates in the Midlands and the West Country. His father, having been badly gassed serving with the Artists’ Rifles in the First World War, died prematurely when Digby was 11. Digby had three sisters, one of whom, Kit won the Croix de Guerre while serving with the Hatfield-Spears Unit in the Western Desert. Her heroism coincided with the action at El Alamein in which her brother John was killed serving with The Bays.

Digby was originally commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, on the Unattached List, on the 28 January 1937, as part of the Indian Army. However, he was then attached to The Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry on the 27 April 1938, and decided to stay with them.

He served with the 2nd Battalion (52nd), The Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, in India, where he enjoyed the rigours of tiger hunting and pig sticking. He returned to the UK from India with the 52nd in 1940 and went on to command ‘C’ Company. It was in late 1941 that the Battalion, along with the other units of the 31st Independent Infantry Brigade, of which it was a part was converted to a glider-borne unit.

He was promoted to full Lieutenant on the 1 January 1940 and then to Acting Captain in the middle of 1940. By the 13 August 1942 he was made a War Substantive Captain and at the same time an Acting Major.

In 1943 he volunteered to become an Army Parachutist and was on Parachute Course 76 at RAF. Ringway, 2 – 13 August 1943. This was a Long Course of eight descents, two from a balloon by night, one from a balloon by day and five from a Whitley aircraft. His Instructors comments: ‘An excellent Officer – good, keen jumper, excellent lander’.

Upon completion he was initially sent to the Holding Wing, Depot & School Airborne Forces at Hardwick Hall, before being sent to North Africa to join the 2nd Parachute Battalion. However, by the time he arrived the Battalion had sailed for Italy and it was not until the 12 October 1943 that he was able to join them. When he arrived he was given command of ‘A’ Company.

On return to England in December 1943, the 2nd Parachute Battalion was billeted in the area around Grantham in Lincolnshire, and ‘A’ Company found itself at Easton Hall. It was here whilst training his Company and remembering his Light Infantry roots, that Major Tatham-Warter, concerned about the effectiveness of the radio’s, had set up a system of using Bugles to send signals within his company that were later used to good effect on the march to Arnhem Bridge and in its defence, in September 1944.

For his actions at Arnhem and his escape afterwards he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, announced in the London Gazette on the 22 March 1945.

Citation: Major TATHAM-WARTER commanded a Company of 2 Para Bn which dropped West of ARNHEM in Holland on 17 Sept. The task of the Bn was the vital one of capturing, the main Rhine Bridge and this officer handled the leading company with such dash and skill that the bridge was in our hands before dark after considerable casualties had been inflicted on the enemy and 30 prisoners captured. Later, when the CO took command of all forces on the Bridge, Major TATHAM-WARTER assumed command of the Bn. He commanded during the next three days when the Bn without any re-supply of food or ammunition, resisted incessant and determined attacks by vastly superior forces including tanks. Throughout this period, Major TATHAM-WARTER displayed magnificent qualities of courage, leadership and the utmost determination.

He was to be found invariably at the most threatened point in the defence, where his personal example was an inspiration to all. On one occasion he was rendered unconscious by blast from an 88mm Tank Gun firing point blank at the house he was in, but he recovered and resumed command. Later, when captured by the enemy, he escaped and showed great initiative in making contact with the Dutch Resistance organisation. He organised and assembled a force of one hundred escaped airborne troops, so that they could play their part when the Germans should begin to withdraw. Finally, when orders were received to withdraw this party through German lines, Major TATHAM-WARTER was largely responsible for the planning of a most brilliant and successful operation in which 130 armed men escaped through the German lines and crossed the Rhine.

For a month, behind the German lines, this officer moved about regardless of his personal safety and was an inspiration to all those who saw him.

Major Tatham-Warter arrived back in England, at Barkston Heath aerodrome on the 24 October 1944, and immediately set about writing a report on the 2nd Battalion’s part in the battle at Arnhem Bridge and had a copy, with a covering letter, sent to all the next-of-kin of the men reported as missing.

With the rank of Acting Lieutenant Colonel, he took command of the 2nd Parachute Battalion on the 20 November 1944, but had to relinquish this rank and command on the 9 December 1944, and revert to being the Second-in-Command, with the arrival of Lt-Col. JWB Marshall to take over as Commanding Officer.

On the 5 July 1945, Major Tatham-Water was posted to the 3rd Parachute Battalion.

After the war, Digby served in the British-controlled Mandatory Palestine before being appointed to the 5th Bn, The King’s African Rifles in the then British controlled Kenya, in 1946, where he also bought two estates in Eburru and Nanyuki. During the Mau Mau Uprising, Digby raised a volunteer mounted police force at his own expense and led them into battle against the Mau Mau. After that, he retired to run his estates. He also created the concept of the modern safari where animals would be photographed rather than hunted. He supported racial reconciliation and believed Africans had the right to self-government, this belief made him somewhat of an outlier within Kenya’s European community. He was also ‘outspokenly sympathetic’ to African nationalism and in particular to Kikuyu concerns about land ownership.

Digby married Jane Boyd in 1949. She was the daughter of Capt. Roderick Bulteel Boyd (a farmer in Nanyuki, Kenya) and granddaughter of Arthur George Egerton, the 5th Earl of Wilton, and they had three daughters and several grandchildren. Their daughter Belinda Rose Tatham-Warter (born 1954) married in Nanyuki, a German aristocrat Duke Friedrich von Oldenburg, great-grandson of Frederick Augustus II, last ruling Grand Duke of Oldenburg.

Digby died in Nanyuki, Kenya on the 21 March 1993.