May 24, 2005

THANK YOU FOR OUR FREEDOM, TOMMY

Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy 'ow's your soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O, it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.
--Rudyard Kipling

Major Tommy Pitman

Major Tommy Pitman, who has died aged 90, won an MC in Palestine in 1936 while serving with the 11th Hussars.

In September that year, the 11th Hussars were rushed to Palestine to help suppress the First Arab Revolt, and C Squadron was deployed in the northern area along the border with Lebanon. One afternoon, Pitman's troop was called out to support a platoon of the York and Lancashire Regiment that had been ambushed on the Acre-Safad road by an Arab force many times their number.

On arriving at the scene, Pitman found that three members of the platoon were dead, four were wounded and there was a man lying out in the open whom no one had been able to reach because of the intense Arab fire. Pitman ordered his armoured cars to give him maximum covering fire while he and a comrade tried to rescue the man.

The pair ran forward while bullets hummed around them like angry wasps and ricocheted off the boulders. They found the casualty, dressed his wounds and carried him back to safety. Pitman was awarded the MC and received the decoration from King George VI, who was Colonel-in-Chief of his regiment.

Thomas Islay Pitman was born on February 11 1915 in Edinburgh and educated at Eton before joining the 11th Hussars as a supplementary reserve officer. An excellent golfer, in 1934 he won the Southern Command and Army Championships.

After passing out of Sandhurst, Pitman was commissioned into the 11th Hussars and joined his regiment in Egypt. In July 1940, soon after the start of the Desert campaign, he was dropped behind the Italian lines to carry out a hazardous reconnaissance of the Tobruk-Bardia road.

His troop hid up during the day, but they were observed by Italian fighter-bombers and knocked out. Another troop was sent to look for him, but without success, and he was captured by the Italians while trying to walk back to the British lines. Pitman was incarcerated in a succession of PoW camps, the last of which was Fontanellato, near Parma.

In September 1943, after the Italians declared an Armistice, the prisoners were allowed to escape and scattered into the mountains. Pitman hid in a charcoal-burner's hut until the snow melted, but he was then recaptured by the Italian fascists and imprisoned at Perugia. He was in civilian clothes and had no identification. Many of his fellow prisoners were under sentence of death, and the fact that a few were taken out each day and never reappeared was a source of no little anxiety.

In May 1944, Pitman was moved to Camp VIB at Warburg, near Kassel. Despite ill treatment and spells in solitary confinement, he never missed an opportunity to remind his captors that they were losing the war. A fellow prisoner said afterwards that, but for Pitman's humour and fortitude, many of them would have perished in the bitterly cold winter.

Pitman was liberated by the Americans in April the following year and rejoined his regiment in Berlin to take command of C Squadron.

In April 1948 a Russian MiG fighter shot down a BEA plane bringing service families from London. The aircraft fell in the Russian Zone, and there were no survivors. C Squadron was ordered to surround the plane and deny the Russian forces access to it. After a stand-off lasting two days, the Russians retired.

Pitman was posted to RMA Sandhurst as an instructor. He subsequently took over Blenheim Company, which became Sovereign's Company, before he left in 1953 to return to his regiment. He commanded C Squadron in Malaya for a year. The Governor, Sir Henry Gurney, had recently been assassinated, and Pitman had the task of protecting visiting VIPs.

After a spell in Seremban as second-in-command, in 1958 Pitman retired from the Army and set up a malting business in North Yorkshire. He bred cattle and sheep and for many years enjoyed golf and shooting. For 10 years, he was chairman of the Northern Horse Show and raised substantial sums for paraplegic charities and for Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

Tommy Pitman died on March 26. He married, in 1948, Sheilah Westropp, the daughter of Major-General Victor Westropp; she survives him with their four daughters