Warned by his father of the imminence of war he
relinquished a place at Cambridge University and spent
that last summer of peace in Norfolk, sailing,
socialising and soldiering as an 18-year-old volunteer
in 5 Royal Norfolk Regiment's TA unit based at
Dersingham, which he joined in May 1939. He subsequently
transferred to the 7th Bn
when the Secretary of State for War, Leslie Hore-Belisha
(who had previously, as Minister of Transport,
introduced the Belisha Beacon), doubled the TA that
summer. Despite having had no military experience beyond
his school cadet corps, he was considered officer
material and commissioned 2 Lt. Considered too young to
command a platoon overseas, he was left behind when 7
Royal Norfolk went to France with the BEF in 1940.
Although a source of some grievance at the time, it
proved a lucky escape. The bulk of the Bn was forced to
surrender with 51 (Highland) Division and taken prisoner
near St Valéry en Caux on 6 Jun 1940 while Jamieson,
who had ventured no nearer the fighting than a
reinforcement camp at Rouen, escaped via Cherbourg to
fight another day. In England he helped to reform the 7th Bn,
was granted a regular commission in 1941 and promoted
company commander. Returning to Normandy a few weeks
after the D-Day landings, when the Allies had been able
to break out through the German armour around Caen,
Jamieson ran into his brother-in-law, Maj John
Tollemache, who was serving with the Coldstream Guards,
and invited him to join them for dinner. Jamieson, who
had been living in a trench, was astounded to find
regimental silver laid out on crisp white tablecloths.
'I knew the Brigade of Guards fought like tigers,' he
recalled, 'but that they should eat like lords so
shortly after a decisive and hard-fought battle in the
middle of Normandy amazed me.' Unfortunately for
Jamieson, he received orders to move on as he was
inspecting this spread, and so missed his dinner.
His first major test was the struggle to secure a
bridgehead over the River Orne near the small village of
Grimbosq. The image of him directing operations from
atop the tank, exposed to enemy fire, became the
enduring symbol of the Norfolks' epic stand. (See picture, above.) But it was,
as Jamieson later admitted, a misleading one. 'The only
thing I was directing was the tank to get the hell out
of it, because it was right in a German tank's line of
fire. I only climbed on to it because the telephone at
the back didn't work.'
David Jamieson was a modest man whose only comment to
his parents when he was sent home to convalesce from his
wounds was that he 'had been in rather a tough spot'.
Shortly afterwards, and much to his shock, the London
Gazette announced that his 'superb qualities of
leadership and great personal bravery' had been
recognised by the award of the VC - the 4th of a record
5 won by the Royal Norfolks in WW2 and the only one to a
living recipient.
Click
here for an account of the Grimbosq battle and a
photograph of the painting.
Later he said: 'I'm a very nervous man. I have always
considered it enormous luck that I got the Victoria
Cross at all.' This reticence disguised Jamieson's
remarkable common sense, coolness in moments of crisis,
and his ability to cut straight to the heart of any
problem. David Jamieson was, in many ways, a peculiarly
English kind of hero; a gent of the old school, modest
and retiring, who liked to give the impression that he
owed his greatest honour to a wonderful, almost
unbelievable, stroke of good fortune. To a point, he was
right. Luck had played a part, though only in so far as
he survived by some miracle to receive the award his
courageous leadership during the 1944 battle of the Orne
bridgehead so richly merited. After all, there are not
many people who have been standing on the side of a tank
when it was blown up and lived to tell the tale. He, of
course, didn't see it that way. Not then, nor
afterwards. Writing to his batman shortly after his
Victoria Cross was announced, he pleaded with him 'not
to make me out to be a hero'.
Over the years those words, or a variation of them, were
repeated until they became a kind of mantra. The role of
regimental hero was never one with which he appeared
entirely comfortable. 'I really couldn't believe it when
I was awarded the VC,' he told Steve Snelling, 'and I
still don't believe it. I don't think I deserved it. I
think the men in my company did a wonderful job in a
very tight corner and deserved very high praise, but, as
an individual, there was nothing I did to deserve the
VC.'
His eldest nephew, Lord Tollemache, said that all those
awarded the VC showed exceptional bravery but it was
considered that David's had been the finest. He told the
tale of David, aged 19, driving through a wartime
blizzard to Norwich in the blackout with pencil
headlight beams, fearful of his sister giving birth in a
snowdrift. (All was well and Lord Tollemache was
delivered indoors.) David said: 'It was the worst night
of my life. I deserved a VC for that!'
When Steve Snelling asked David at The Drove House which
of his achievements had given him the greatest sense of
personal satisfaction, expecting his reply to take in
one of his numerous civic or military posts, he
answered: 'Keeping this vast, hopeless, useless
Victorian house going through 40 years of incredible
social change, and still being here.'
Jamieson remained in the Army, with a regular commission
and after the war became an instructor at the School of
Infantry, Warminster, as a Major, and in 1948 was posted
as adviser on the British Military Mission to Egypt.
Retiring that year to pursue a highly successful
business career with interests in Australia and Britain,
he was a director of the Australian Agricultural Co from
1949-78, and governor from 1952-76, transforming the
fortunes of the company, which controlled a chain of
Australian sheep and cattle stations.
In 1948 he married, on Norfolk Island, Nancy Elwes, a
childhood friend from an old Norfolk family, to whom he
had proposed by post when she was in a War Office job in
Singapore. They had a son and two daughters. In 1963 she
was killed in a car accident.
He was also a director of the UK branch of the
Australian Mutual Provident Society, 1963-8 (deputy
chairman 1973-89); of National Westminster Bank,
1983-87; of Steetly plc, 1976-86 (deputy chairman,
1983-86) and chairman of Norfolk Fruit Growers. In 1968
he was appointed a member of the Honourable Corps of
Gentlemen at Arms, the Queen's Body Guard and in 1979-80
he was High Sheriff of Norfolk. In 1986 he delivered up
his Stick of Office as Clerk of the Cheque and Adjutant
(1981-6) on his appointment as Lieutenant of the Corps
of Gentlemen at Arms, serving in that office until 1990,
when he was appointed CVO. During this period, he was
also given the informal title of 'My Umbrella Man' by
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who was always keen
that Jamieson should escort her at garden parties, since
his height and prestige as a VC enabled him to cut a
swathe through the close-knit crowd with his umbrella.
Throughout, he maintained close ties with his old
regiment, spearheading a successful appeal to relocate
The Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum in Norwich's
Shirehall.
In his later years he bore with fortitude and
cheerfulness the successive amputation of both his legs.
But though confined to a wheelchair he developed new
interests in painting and tapestry-making, achieving a
high standard in both these arts. His eldest nephew,
Lord Tollemache, said that David attacked golf balls at
Brancaster with all the ferocity and expletives used
against the enemy in 1944. (It was he who persuaded a
most reluctant David to sit for the painting.)
In the early 1990s, he moved to a specially-equipped
house in Burnham Market with his second wife, Joanna
Windsor-Clive, nee Woodall, whom he married in 1969.
Thornham, however, remained his spiritual home. 'He
loved The Drove and the orchards he grew there,'
recalled Mrs Jamieson. 'It was a great joy in his life.
He loved the beach and the marshes with its birdlife.
That was his favourite place.'
He is survived by his widow, by the son and two
daughters of his first marriage, three grandchildren and
by a stepson and stepdaughter. Conducted by Rev Jonathan
Charles, the funeral took place at Burnham Market
Church, attended by HM Lord Lieutenant for Norfolk, Sir
Timothy Colman KG JP DCL, Gen Jack Dye CBE MC DL, Gen
John Sutherell CBE, Maj Alan Pryce 2IC 1RANGLIAN, those
who had served with David and those who simply wished to
pay their last respects to a genuine, if reluctant, hero
of the old school. Compiled by JLR from The Times,
The Telegraph, from 'Salute to a Norfolk hero' by Steve
Snelling of the EDP and from
www.chapter-one.com/vc/award.asp?vc=631 maintained
by Mike Chapman.
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B&C Norfolk Editor