Coastal Forces officer who saw fierce fighting in the Channel and then in the Mediterranean
Claude Holloway joined the Royal Navy in 1938. Enrolling as a seaman he was drafted to the battleship Warspite. While in Warspite in April 1940 he witnessed the dramatic Second Battle of Narvik when the battleship boldly entered a narrow Norwegian fjord, contributing to the sinking or scuttling of eight German destroyers and a U-boat. Later Warspite moved to the Med, leading Admiral Cunningham’s first brush with the Italians off Calabria in July.
Holloway’s qualities marked him as officer material, so he was sent home in August 1940, emerging in December from the officers’ training base HMS King Alfred as a sub-lieutenant RNVR. He joined Coastal Forces at Chatham and by April 1941 was second-in-command of a powerfully armed motor-launch (ML), taking part in the noisy, violent and mostly nocturnal actions against German convoys in the North Sea and Channel.
In July 1942 he was given his first command of a motor torpedo boat (MTB); his second was shipped to Malta in July 1943. Under the command of the much decorated Lieutenant Christopher Dreyer (obituary July 4, 2003) in the 24th MTB Flotilla, Holloway saw plenty of action during Operation Husky, the landings in Sicily, during which he helped to sink a U-boat in the Messina Strait and was attacked by German aircraft and E-boats.
In September 1943 he was one of the seven MTBs that escorted 18 warships of the Italian fleet to their surrender at Malta. He was also present during the German bombing attack on Bari in December. The port, crowded with Allied shipping loaded with supplies for the 8th Army, became an inferno. About 1,000 lives were lost and 17 ships were sunk or damaged. When Holloway was rescuing men in the water, he had the misfortune to fall in and became covered in oil and mustard gas — carried by a US ship as a possible retaliation should chemical weapons be used by the Germans.
After a long stay in hospital and sick leave, he returned to duty in February 1944. In one subsequent action his flotilla leader was killed alongside him. Holloway later transferred to a new MTB and the 28th Flotilla at Naples. In the last three months of the war the 28th Flotilla chalked up a remarkable record, firing 51 torpedoes to sink or immobilise 21 ships. He was awarded the DSC for his torpedo attack on a convoy off Istria on April 16, 1945.
The Germans surrendered on May 2. Thereafter Holloway was senior officer of the 28th Flotilla at Malta in a training role until it paid off in November 1945. During this time he was able to get back to Naples, arriving on April 15 and marrying his fianceé, Anne Gaylor, a Wren serving at Ischia, the next day.
After the war Holloway took up stockbroking, rising to a partnership in Laurence Prust and Co and retiring in 1984.
He was the founding member and first chairman of the Wadhurst Social Action Project to support the sick, lonely, handicapped and housebound in the village and surrounds. He was a member of Rye golf club for 47 years.
His wife Anne died in 1996. He is survived by their two sons.
Lieutenant Claude Holloway, DSC, RNVR, Coastal Forces captain and stockbroker, was born on May 14, 1919. He died on March 25, 2012, aged 92
Gerrard-Wright (right), with Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Hall-Tipping, during one of two tours in Northern Ireland
Popular and forceful army officer who dealt admirably with the different demands of postings in Kenya and Northern Ireland
Dick Gerrard-Wright was essentially a regimental officer. He was physically strong, forthright and a natural leader in whom soldiers had confidence and respect for his judgment and care for their wellbeing. Staff work at senior level was not his metier, and he was always glad to return to command with thanksgiving.
Richard Eustace John Gerrard-Wright was born in Woolsthorpe-by-Belvoir, Lincolnshire, in 1930, the son of the Rev Robert Gerrard-Wright of that parish; he retained a strong attachment to the county throughout his life. He was educated at Christ’s Hospital and RMA Sandhurst from where he was commissioned into the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment in 1949.
He served with the 1st Battalion in the Suez Canal Zone, Germany and the UK until 1955, when the Royal Lincolns went to Malaya to join the British and Gurkha units dealing with the communist insurrection there. He was battalion Adjutant from 1957 to 1958 and was mentioned in despatches.
On return to England, he went back to Sandhurst as an instructor. While there, under the Duncan Sandys defence review that radically reduced the infantry’s fighting strength, the Royal Lincolns were amalgamated with the Northamptonshire Regiment to form the 2nd East (later Royal) Anglian Regiment.
Gerrard-Wright served with 2nd East Anglians in the Army of the Rhine and on passing the Staff College examination elected to attend the Indian Defence Services Staff College at Wellington in Tamil Nadu. This had an attendant risk. While he could be sure of sound staff training on British lines, he would not make the professional contacts he could have made at Camberley and by stepping outside the mainstream might miss one of the better staff appointments.
In fact, on completion of the course in early 1963, he was appointed Brigade Major (chief of staff) of the 70th (East African) Brigade in Kenya. During the ensuing two years he was closely involved in the transformation of the brigade into the basis for newly independent Kenya’s army and was appointed MBE for his services in 1965.
After further service with 2nd Royal Anglian Regiment, as it had become in 1964, he returned to the Far East as Brigade Major of 28th (Commonwealth) Brigade at Terendak in peninsular Malaysia. This was a prestigious post, as the brigade represented the Commonwealth’s commitment to Malaysia in face of threatened communist expansion from Vietnam through Thailand.
It was command of 2nd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment from 1970 to 1973 that set him on the path to rapid promotion. During this time the Government of Edward Heath and the Army wrestled with the problem of how best to react to the increasing level of violence in Northern Ireland.
His first operational tour in west Belfast in 1971 and a second in the Lower Falls in 1972 established him as a battalion commander of ability and confidence, one who could deal with the dangers, human rights problems and the often petty absurdities of the conflict with firmness, tolerance and humour. He was appointed OBE after his first tour and mentioned in dispatches at the end of the second.
After an operational staff appointment in Germany with Headquarters 1st (British) Corps, in 1975 he was advanced to brigadier to command 39 Infantry Brigade responsible for Belfast and its immediate environs.
It was during his brigade command that the aspirational policy of “police primacy” was introduced in the Province. Sceptical of the practicality of restoring the Royal Ulster Constabulary to frontline duty in the republican hardline areas of Belfast and Londonderry, Gerrard-Wright found difficulty inimplementing a policy in which he knew the RUC also had doubts. This was not an easy period for him but he was advanced to CBE at the end of it.
The course at the Canadian National Defence College, Ontario, proved a welcome change and his customary forthright manner made him a popular student. A return to Germany as Chief of Staff at HQ 1st (British) Corps at Bielefeld followed but he was unable to establish a sound working relationship with the Corps Commander, Lieutenant-General Sir Peter Leng.
A personality clash at this level is usually fatal for the career prospects of the junior partner, and so it eventually proved for Gerrard-Wright. He was promoted major-general in 1980 to become GOC of the large Eastern District in the UK but his next post as Director Territorial Army and Cadets in the MoD was a recognised final appointment.
He was appointed CB in 1985 and left the Army that year to become the chief executive and secretary of the Hurlingham Club. This proved not especially to his liking and after two years he retired to Lincolnshire to work as a touring examiner of the Army Security Vetting Unit, while still giving much of his time and restless energy to regimental issues. One of his key interests was the establishment of the Royal Lincolns’ regimental collection in the Museum of Lincolnshire Life in Lincoln.
He was Deputy Colonel The Royal Anglian Regiment 1975-1980 and Colonel Commandant of the Queen’s Division, to which his regiment belonged, 1981-1984. He was also President of the SSAFA Forces Help organisation for Lincolnshire from 1998 to 2010, a Deputy Lieutenant for Cambridgeshire 1993-1997 and for Lincolnshire from 1997 until his death.
One evening in 1996, while waiting with his wife in the taxi queue outside Victoria Station, he was struck violently in the face by a children’s nurse who objected to him suggesting she take her rightful place at the end of the queue. At the subsequent court case, the nurse accused Gerrard-Wright of racial abuse, which he flatly denied. The judge admonished her and her solicitor for trying to “play the race card” and sentenced her to 12 months’ imprisonment, although this was reduced on appeal.
Gerrard-Wright married Susan Kathleen, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel F. W. Young of his regiment, in 1960. She survives him along with two sons and a daughter. Another daughter died from injuries sustained in a traffic accident in 1988.
Major-General Richard Gerrard-Wright, CB, CBE, DL, Director Territorial Army and Cadets, 1982-85, was born on May 9, 1930. He died on May 12, 2012, aged 82
