Major Colin Bligh, who has died aged 100, saw hard fighting in the Italian Campaign and had some narrow escapes as an infantry officer and as a commander of a troop of tanks.
Colin Herbert Bligh, one of three children, was born on January 31 1924 in Nyasaland (now Malawi). His father, a tobacco planter, had served with the Nyasaland Volunteers in German East Africa (now Tanzania) in the First World War.
Young Colin was educated at Caterham School in Surrey, where he played in the first XV. In April 1942, he enlisted in the Army and completed his basic training with the 58th (Young Soldiers ) Training Regiment at the Royal Armoured Corps Centre (RAC) in Bovington, Dorset. After the short course at Royal Military College Sandhurst, aged 19, he was commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment (RTR).
He subsequently embarked at Liverpool, bound for Italy. The convoy was shadowed by a German reconnaissance aircraft before being attacked by a dozen Stuka dive bombers. They docked at Taranto, and such was the shortage of infantry soldiers resulting from heavy casualties that Bligh was posted to 2/4 Battalion The King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI) in the rugged, mountainous country on the approaches to Monte Cassino.
Bligh commanded a platoon, and on a recce patrol he had a close shave when a shell landed within a few yards of him. He felt the blast of hot air, smelled the fumes and heard the steel splinters whizzing past him. In a successful battalion night attack on a ridge, he led his platoon with a Thompson sub-machine gun in one hand and a grenade in the other, having first removed the pin with his teeth.
He was injured when a jeep overturned and was taken to hospital. He convalesced near Bari before being posted to an RAC reinforcement camp. His brief experience with the KOYLI left him with a lasting admiration for the cheerful fortitude of the ordinary infantryman, who lived and sometimes died in atrocious conditions of fatigue, freezing weather, mud, and the constant danger from bullets, mortars, shells and anti-personnel mines.
Bligh joined the 51st (Leeds Rifles) Battalion RTR in command of a troop equipped with Churchill tanks. His tank was disabled twice, once by a shell from a self-propelled 75mm gun and another time by a mine. They advanced up the coast of Italy before swinging east to support the attack on the German Gothic Line in the advance to the River Po.
In November 1944, on the road to Bologna, he and his men made a night reconnaissance of Forli airfield which entailed lifting mines to clear the entrance. At first light, he led his tanks across the airfield without a preliminary artillery bombardment. The silent attack caught the Germans by surprise and the infantry following up took many prisoners.
Bligh then found himself behind the enemy defensive positions along the River Ronco. With a clear field of fire down a straight one-mile stretch of road which the enemy had to cross, his tanks inflicted many casualties on the retreating Germans throughout the day. A counterattack by enemy tanks was driven off with the support of Allied aircraft firing rockets. Bligh was Mentioned in Despatches for his part in the action.
At the end of the war, he was granted a regular commission. He rejoined 2 RTR in Austria but returned to Italy with them to counter the threat of Marshal Tito’s designs on the disputed port of Trieste. He subsequently served with his regiment in Germany as part of the British Army of Occupation.
A spell as a staff captain at HQ 4th Armoured Brigade was followed by a posting to Palestine as an Air Liaison Officer during the unrest at the end of British Mandate in 1948. He then decided to return to Africa, where he had been born, and volunteered to serve with African soldiers.
He flew from Kenya to join the 1st (East Africa) Independent Armoured Car Squadron at Borama, British Somaliland (now unilaterally declared as the Republic of Somaliland) as the only passenger in an old Avro Anson aircraft. During a thunderstorm over Mount Kenya, the navigator’s map blew out of the co*ckpit window.
The pilot got lost but managed to find the coast of Somalia and was following it northwards to Mogadishu when the plane ran out of fuel. The engines spluttered into silence and the pilot carried out a “wheels up” crash landing on the beach. The plane somersaulted and overturned. Bligh crawled out from under a pile of freight to find two Somali nomads with spears gazing at him. Fortunately, no one was badly hurt.
As second-in-command of the Armoured Car Squadron he served in both British and occupied Italian Somalilands, as they were known then. He was involved in keeping the peace, riot control and “showing the flag” on patrols in support of the colonial administration.
In 1950 he was posted to Nairobi on his appointment as ADC to Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Dowler, General Officer Commanding East Africa Command. His predecessor had been summarily dispatched to a remote outpost of the British Empire for flirting with the great man’s pretty daughter.
Bligh returned to England in November 1951. He rejoined 2 RTR at Warminster, first as a troop commander and then as adjutant when they moved to Münster in West Germany.
After attending Staff College, Camberley, on promotion to major he was posted to Jordan as the senior staff officer at the HQ of “O” Force, a small garrison guarding strategic military stores at Aqaba at the head of the Red Sea. After the Suez debacle, “O” Force was disbanded. Bligh was appointed MBE for organising the successful evacuation of the garrison and the re-allocation or disposal of the stores – a most exacting task carried out at very short notice.
A spell in Cyprus during the Eoka campaign was followed by a final appointment at the War Office in London. Army cutbacks had reduced the number of tank regiments from eight to four and Bligh decided to retire early and take a “golden bowler” (the “Golden Bowler” scheme was designed to reduce the size of the three services by offering early retirement).
In 1959, he went to Guy’s Hospital Medical School and embarked on a five-year “academic marathon”. After qualifying as a dental surgeon, he joined his brother’s practice at Crowborough in Sussex.
In retirement, he enjoyed collecting stamps and gardening and was also a supporter of a number of Service charities. But, at heart, he always remained a soldier.
Colin Bligh married, in 1962, Hazel Thomas. She predeceased him and he is survived by their two daughters.
Colin Bligh, born January 31 1924, died June 6 2024
