Member-only story
Military Obits Worthy Of A Salute
These remarkable men and women — including the model for “Q” in the James Bond books — served with courage and distinction
Digby Tatham-Warter led a bayonet charge during the Battle of Arnhem sporting a bowler hat and an umbrella.
Nell Allgrove and other Australian nurses survived on two ounces of rice a day in Japanese camps in Sumatra after the sinking of the ship, the Vyner Brooke.
Charles Fraser-Smith hid maps in a flask and sent golf balls with compasses inside them to British prisoners in Germany, an effort so successful that he became the model for “Q” in the James Bond books.
The stories of these and other extraordinary men and women appear in The Daily Telegraph Second Book of Obituaries: Heroes and Adventurers (Macmillan, 1993), edited by Hugh Massingberd, the second volume in a series from one of Britain’s leading national newspapers.
Most of the subjects of this book were British or Commonwealth soldiers, sailors, aviators, spies, or nurses, though some never wore a uniform. And their stories show why military-obituary writers at the Telegraph are seen as five-star generals of a vanishing art. Written with…
