Sir Oliver Chesterton RIP

[Kyt]

Sir Oliver Chesterton, who died on October 14 aged 94, was the fifth-generation head of his family's estate agency business, one of the oldest in London, and chairman of the Woolwich building society.

Oliver Chesterton went to Sandhurst in 1939 and was commissioned into the Irish Guards the following year. After a spell as an instructor at GHQ Battle Drill School, he embarked for French North Africa with 1st Battalion and landed at Algiers in March 1943.

On April 27, on a blazing hot afternoon, 1st Battalion took part in a brigade attack on Hill 212 which buttressed the Djebel Bou Aoukaz, an important strategic feature near Tunis.

As the companies left the cover of a short spur and debouched into the open plain, the Germans opened fire. "They threw everything but their cap-badges at us," a guardsman said afterwards.

The platoons plunged into waist-high corn but as the fire intensified the whole field was ripped and torn.

The guardsmen moved on into an olive grove which was a registered German target and the enemy guns pounded it systematically, working up and down the lines of trees.

Chesterton, in command of 1 Company, absorbed the remnants of 4 Company and advanced behind a thin film of smoke from his 2-inch mortars.

A burst of machine-gun fire from a farmyard caught his men in the flank but the position was rushed and the post knocked out.

Chesterton was wounded three times in quick succession but got to his wireless set and told his CO, Lt-Col Montagu-Douglas-Scott, that if they could sit tight for 30 minutes until it was dark, they could take the hill. His CO agreed and the two men selected targets on which to bring down artillery fire.

As soon as it was dark, 1 Company fixed bayonets and plodded silently up the hill, while the shells were still falling on the top. The Germans, however, had had enough and fled along a ridge and down the other side. One hundred and seventy-three men out of four rifle companies and Battalion HQ reached Hill 212 that night.

Chesterton was awarded an immediate MC. The citation stated that the battalion's casualties had been so severe that if he had not ignored his wounds and led his company on to the objective, the hill would not have been captured.

He was in a series of military hospitals before being evacuated to England in June 1943 for further treatment. He joined the Training Battalion in January 1944 and was released by the Army in September 1945.

After demobilisation Oliver returned to Chesterton & Co and became senior partner — a post he held for 35 years, during which the firm consolidated its position in the upper strata of the London property scene, expanding beyond its traditional residential portfolio into the commercial sector and the City.

[Antipodean Andy]

This'll sound wrong but, they're dropping like flies. I dread the day when we talk about "the last WWII veteran" but it will be upon us eventually.