90450 Major Sir Vivian Ernest FUCHS, MiD, Suffolk Regiment

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  1. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

    Personal Number: 90450
    Rank: Major
    Name: Sir Vivian Ernest FUCHS, MiD
    Unit: Cambridgeshire Regiment ; Suffolk Regiment


    London Gazette : 11 July 1939
    https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/34644/page/4762/data.pdf
    Camb. R.—
    Vivian Ernest FUCHS (late Ca'det C.S.M., Brighton Coll. Contgt., Jun. Div., O.T.C.) to be 2nd Lt. 21st June 1939.

    London Gazette : 9 August 1945
    https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/37213/supplement/4052/data.pdf
    The KING has been graciously pleased to approve that the following be Mentioned in recognition of gallant and distinguished service in North-West Europe:—
    Suffolk R.
    Maj. (temp.) V. E. FUCHS (90450).

    London Gazette : 13 May 1958
    https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/41384/page/2997/data.pdf
    The QUEEN has been graciously pleased to approve the following awards of the Polar Medal for good services as members of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1956-1958:—
    Clasp to the Polar Medal.
    Dr. Vivian Ernest FUCHS, M.A., Ph.D,.

    London Gazette : 16 May 1958
    https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/41388/page/3090/data.pdf
    The QUEEN was pleased on Thursday the 15th May at Buckingham Palace to confer the honour of Knighthood upon Vivian Ernest Fuchs, Esq.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2022
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  3. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

    See also:
    • Sir Vivian Fuchs - Biography
    • image.jpeg
    • In June 1943 Fuchs was chosen for one of the highly coveted places alloted to the West African Command on the Camberley Staff course in the UK, and in September arrived home for a month's leave, able to get to know his children again.
      At the end of a condensed course of four months (reduced from a year), Fuchs qualified and was posted to Second Army HQ in London to work in Civil Affairs. This also gave him the opportunity to visit his father regularly, and they kept in close contact during the following months. Six weeks before D-Day his unit left London for Portsmouth to prepare for the invasion of France.
      Four days after D-Day, Fuchs's group crossed the English Channel to 'Gold Beach' on the French coast. Civil Affairs moved in behind the tanks to set up administration, slowly moving through France then advancing rapidly through Belgium and into Holland, where Fuchs stayed for several months. On crossing the border into Germany Fuchs witnessed the first prisoners liberated from Belsen concentration camp - hardly able to walk with their tattered clothes hanging from their emaciated bodies.
      The unit travelled through the chaos of devastated Germany to Schleswig-Holstein, where Fuchs became responsible for a Kreis (equivalent to an English county) with his HQ in Plön. The bureaucracy was inevitably stifling and counterproductive, but Fuchs made the system work, learning the language and legal procedures, holding court, managing the dispersal of German refugees returning from the Russian front. During this time he made many friends and learned skills that were to prove useful in later life.
      Having volunteered to remain in Plön after the end of the war, by October 1946 Fuchs felt ready to leave Germany, and returned home to his family.

    • https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.2001.0012
    • Screenshot 2022-11-18 at 17.22.09.png
    • Vivian Fuchs - Wikipedia
    • At the age of thirty, he enrolled in the Territorial Army, and was dispatched to the Gold Coast from 1942 to July 1943. He returned home and was posted to London at Second Army headquarters in a civil affairs position. The Second Army was transferred to Portsmouth for the D-Day landings, and Fuchs eventually reached Germany in time to see the release of prisoners from the Belsen concentration camp. He governed the Plön district in Schleswig-Holstein until October 1946, when he was discharged from military service with the rank of Major.
    • Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge » Vivian Fuchs, deceased
    • Fuchs served in West Africa during 1942-43 but was recalled to attend the Staff College at Camberley, and was then posted to North Western Europe, where he was mentioned in dispatches. He was demobilised as a major in 1946.
    • Sir Vivian Ernest Fuchs | Antarctic Expedition & Facts
    • Medal commemorating Sir Vivian Ernest Fuchs (1908-1999) | Royal Museums Greenwich
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2022
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