Major Ian Fenwick (1910 – 1944)1. Ian Fenwick was an artist and a soldier. He was born in September 1910 in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, the son of Captain Charles Harry Fenwick of the 60th Rifles, who had married an American socialite called Lilian Everett from Newport, Rhode Island. Ian’s father, who was known as Harry, had achieved fame of a sort by owning Why Not, which won the Grand National at Aintree in 18941.

2. Harry and Lilian had three children: Elma2, Audrey and Charles.

3. But then, in 1904, Lilian died in Madeira, Portugal. She was just 30 at the time; Harry was 41. Five years later, Harry married a young Australian girl, Winifred Ryrie, from Cooba, New South Wales. She was 24 years his junior, not much older than his oldest daughter, and the next year, Ian was born.

4. The family lived at Rutland Gate, just south of Hyde Park in London. The 1911 census shows that they had, living with them in the house, 3 nurses, a butler, a cook, 2 housemands, a lady’s maid, a kitchen maid and a footman3.

5. The household was evidently prosperous. A further glimpse of his life as a child can be gathered from the preface to his posthumous book Enter Trubshaw, which was written by his childhood friend David Niven:1 See page Error: Reference source not found above.2 Who later was known by her second name, Lilian, like her mother.3 For some reason, Ian’s sister Audrey is not listed on the census form. Perhaps she was away at boarding school. She was certainly alive, for in 1917 she married Guy, later Lt Colonel, Blewitt.

At the age of nine I played in a children’s tennis tournament at Bembridge, I. of W. I was beaten 6-0 in the first round and thereupon retired from serious tennis for ever. My conqueror was Ian Fenwick.

Later we became great friends and many happy summer holidays were spent by the seaside taking the corks out of people’s rowing boats and smoking blotting paper up trees.

6. It is indeed clear that Ian was an excellent sportsman. He went to Winchester4 and played for their 1st XI in 19295. Ian then went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge6, and then to art college in Berlin.

7. Ian was busy as an artist during the 1930s. His drawings appeared in many magazines, including Punch, Men Only, and London Opinion. His books, and books he illustrated, include:

Pick-Me-Up: Thirteen Drawings in Colour by Ian, with Rhyming Recipes by A.N. Other. Published by Centaur Press (1933)7

Songs of a Sub-man by Patrick Barrington, illustrated by Ian and published by Methuen (1934)

4 Winchester College, founded in 1382, is one of England’s more established Public Schools. 5 http://www.espncricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/236197.html6 A slightly older instiutution, having been licenced in 1347.7 Image from www.omnivorebooks.com.

The Bed Book, a Book of Drawings To Read While You Wait (1935)

Weepings and Wailings, a book of poems by Sir John Collings Squire, with illustrations by Ian (1935)

I’m Telling You When and Where to Winter Sport, published by Cobden-Sanderson (1937)

Start Early, a guide on how to ski written for children was published by the Oxford University Press (1939)

Car Canny, a collection of motoring stories collected by Arthur Clitheroe, which Ian illustrated, published by Duckworth (1939)

Enter Trubshaw was a posthumous collection of Ian’s drawings

8. David Niven and Ian had a mutual friend after whom this last book was named: Michael Trubshaw, who was 6’6” tall with a significant moustache.  He was evidently an aristocratic dipsomaniac, unable to hold down any normal sort of occupation, who became a butler in order to make ends meet.  He was a source of huge amusement to both David Niven and Ian Fenwick. After World War II, David Niven eventually got him enlisted into minor parts in several films (in which, curiously, Trubshaw changed his name to Trubshawe, perhaps in a shallow trick to evade his creditors?) and Ian Fenwick repeatedly featured him, or imagined members of his family, into his books.

9. The army was well established in family life. His father and his uncle had been serving officers, and his brother likwise. Ian was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the Leicestershire Yeomanry in 1937, just a couple of years before the outbreak of World War II.

10. In 1938, his father died. Ian transferred into his father’s old regiment, now known as the King’s Royal Rifle Corps8. The early part of the war was, for much of the army, something of a waiting game. But there were more deaths. In 1942, both his mother and his brother died. His mother was not old, just in her

mid-fifties; she had a town house just north of Hyde park in London, and a rather larger house overlooking Oxford University Parks. His older half-brother Charles Roderick Everett Fenwick died on active service in the Middle East, serving as a Major with the Royal Armoured Corps. He is buried at the Heliopolis War Cemetery on the outskirts of

Cairo. By bizarre coincidence, my father, then just a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, was serving in the same place at the same time, but happily survived the war.

11. Ian joined the Special Air Service in February 1944. A few months later, as commander of “D” Squadron, 1st SAS, in Operation Gain, and holding the rank of Major, he parachuted into France on the night of 16th/17th June 1944, with some

60 men in the vicinity of Orleans, together with a number of Jeeps. This was just a couple of weeks after the Normandy landing on D-Day, but well over a hundred miles behind enemy lines. Their job was to disrupt enemy communications, they proceeded to do just that, blowing up railway lines and, working with the French Resistance, derailing many trains. They sent back daily reports. After a couple of months, good work had been done: after another successful night attack on a train carrying troops and ammunition Ian reported that, “We are happy in our work.” By the end of Operation Gain, 16 railway lines

had been put out of action and two locomotives and 46 trucks destroyed. Indeed, when the Americans from the main invasion force later linked up with them, they refused to believe that they had acquired the Jeeps legitimately and “D” Squadron’s sergeant-major, Jim Almonds, was marched off to General George Patton.

"If you're Brits you'll be OK. If not, you'll be shot," Patton told him.

12. In the event, Almonds was handed over to a British liaison officer and all was well; instead of being shot by the Americans, Almonds was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Silver Star9.

8 If you have reached this point in the book without noting the part that tradition plays in the family history, then I have failed signally to obtain your attention.9 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1498251/Major-Gentleman-Jim-Almonds.html

13. In the meantime, a double agent had given the game away for “D” squadron. On the 7th August, 1944, their base was surrounded by some 600 German soldiers. The base party was successful in breaking out, while Ian was out on an operational patrol at the time. A colleague in arms wrote:

It was typical of him that his first thought should be for the safety of his men. It was in an attempt to relieve them immediately that, after successfully attacking an enemy column, he was ambushed in his jeep and killed instantaneously. Thus died a very gallant Englishman.

14. But there is more to the story than that10. A fuller account suggests that Ian had been informed – wrongly – that his men had been killed, and that as he was headed to join up with another group under the command of Captain Jock Riding, his Jeep was seen by a German spotter plane, which radioed his whereabout to the SS troops on the ground. The Germans set up an ambush for him near Chambon. An elderly French woman, it is said, stopped his Jeep and warned him of the ambush. Ian, perhaps still enraged by the news of his men’s fate, is supposed to have said, “Thank you, Madame, but I intend to attack them”, and proceded to do just that, with all guns blazing. They nearly succeeded, but Ian, who was driving, was shot through the forehead. Of the others in the Jeep, Lance-Corporal Albert Menginou of the French Resistance was also killed, and Corporals Duffy and Dunkley were captured. Dunkley was executed by the the Germans the next day11; Duffy escaped.

15. Ian is buried at the cemetry at Chambon-La-Foret.

16. It might be said, of course, that it was unwise of Ian to attack the ambush. Was it just a rush of blood to the head? Perhaps. But more probably, he was under the influence of an excess of that self-assurance which comes from privilege. And perhaps also several hundred years of a family history that somehow gave him licence, not only to pull the corks out of other people’s rowing boats whilst a child, but to be as irreverant as he liked as an artist and to attack the enemy in style as a soldier. This is not to suggest some sort of familial ennui, as infected the aristocratic characters in Checkov’s plays, but rather that there is something liberating about being part of an old family, in the sense that what matters is not one’s own preservation as an individual, but the contribution one makes to the overall tapestry of the family.

10 See for example Rogue Warrior of the SAS: The Blair Mayne Legend by Martin Dillon and Roy Bradford11 http://loiret3945.forumgratuit.org/t363-qui-a-des-renseignements-sur-l-operation-gain