104106 Captain Hugh Everard Joseph DORMER, DSO, 2 Irish Guards & SOE: 01/08/1944

Personal Number: 104106
Rank: Captain
Name: Hugh Everard Joseph DORMER, DSO
Unit: Irish Guards; Special Operations Executive

Date of Birth: 11 March 1919
Place of Birth: London

Date of Death: 1 August 1944


London Gazette : 15 December 1939
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/34753/supplement/8308/data.pdf
FOOT GUARDS.
I, G'ds.—
Hugh Everard Joseph DORMER (104106) (late Offr., Cadet, Oxford Univ. Contgt., Sen. Div., O.T.C.) to be 2nd Lt. 16th Nov. 1939

London Gazette : 9 December 1943
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/36278/supplement/5374/data.pdf
The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the following awards in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in the field.
The Distinguished Service Order.
Lieutenant (temporary Captain) Hugh Everard Joseph Dormer (104106), Irish Guards.

 

Recommendation for Award for Dormer, Hugh Everard Joseph Rank: Lieutenant ... | The National Archives
Reference: WO 373/94/118
Name Dormer, Hugh Everard Joseph
Rank: Lieutenant
Service No: 104106
Regiment: Irish Guards
Theatre of Combat or Operation: Royal Air Force
Award: Distinguished Service Order
Date of announcement in London Gazette: 14 December 1943

 

From A Soldier’s Story, by J.O.E. Vandeleur, page 80:
During the advance from St. Martin the 2nd Armoured Irish Guards had suffered heavy losses, including Hugh Dormer ... Hugh Dormer was an incredible character. He had been reading to become a priest. Early in the war he had done two parachute jumps into Occupied France and had taken part in the blowing up of the Renault works near Paris. Upon both these missions he had to return to England across the Pyrenees. He had obtained the D.S.O. as a subaltern.


From History of the Irish Guards in WW2, FitzGerald, page 401:
During the night the COLDSTREAMERS sent out the routine patrols. They brought in the usual reports of German tanks and infantry moving about in the dark. Neither side discovered till the morning that they had slept within 200 yards of each other, divided only by the crest. The night was quiet and still. The only sight or sound was the crackle and glow of a fire just by Point 192 in front of the COLDSTREAM company. It might be anything - a house, a haystack, or a tank. No. 2 Squadron checked over their tanks and found that Captain Hugh Dormer's was missing. He had not been heard on the wireless for some time, but there was nothing unusual in that, for he was second-in-command of the Squadron and would not normally speak in the routine calls. The other tanks in his half-squadron had not seen him, for in their attack he had been on the extreme right and some way ahead. Nobody felt any worry at first. When a battalion goes into harbour there is often a tank missing, but its crew usually walk in later demanding food and complaining about a break-down or a "brew-up." As the night wore on and there was no sign of the missing crew the Squadron's thoughts turned to that fire, now only a faint glow. The following morning, on their way back to Point 192, they found Captain Hugh Dormer in the middle of a field and his burnt-out tank jammed up against the far hedge. It was clear what had happened. To reach the top of the hill, Captain Dormer went round the side of an orchard and then, like everyone else, had lost his way. As his tank came over a small rise just clear of the orchard a concealed German tank put a shot straight into its bow. The driver and co-driver were killed, for their bodies were still in the tank. The engine was undamaged, so the tank plunged driver-less across the field till it hit a tree. Even then the tracks were still working, and the tank dug itself deeper and deeper into the ground until it caught fire. He and the other two in the turret, the gunner and the operator, jumped clear of the tank and ran for the orchard. A machine-gunner cut down Captain Dormer and his companions captured the two Guardsmen. The Squadron buried "our Mr. Dormer, D.S.O." and marked the grave with his tank helmet and flowers. There was no sign of the other two men; they were later reported wounded and captured.

Captain Hugh Dormer held and avowed strong religious and political convictions. He devoted his whole mind to the war which, for him, was in every way a fight for civilization. During the training in Wiltshire he left the Battalion for several long periods. His brother officers did not know what he was doing, but guessed it was something connected with France and "cloak and dagger work." He returned, polite and uncommunicative. His friends did not like to question him, even when he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for "undisclosed special services." After the war it was revealed that he had twice been dropped in France by parachute, had blown up a shale plant working for the Germans, and had made his way, on foot and hunted by blood-hounds, though France and over the Pyrenees. He returned eagerly to that most difficult and dangerous of all operation, regimental soldiering. Like so many of the best men in the country, he died gallantly but unobtrusively in a minor attack. And his diaries show that he had perhaps a feeling that, this time, he would not return from France.



From The Times of My Life, Sir John Gorman, pages 24-25:
Hugh Dormer, "The Birdman", was our Squadron hero. He had volunteered for Special Operations and had on several occasions parachuted into France with the object of destroying German installation such as large factories, work requiring bravery and presence of mind beyond most of us. Every moment he was in danger, through betrayal by French quislings or by some clue which he gave to the Germans who stopped him frequently, especially after his bombs had done their work. On the third such venture he managed to escape over the Pyrenees to Spain, with the Germans hard on his heels, and get back to England. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, after the VC the most coveted decoration a service officer can win. He returned to No. 2 Squadron as a Troop Leader. The experiment of the 5th Troop came to an end (I often wonder how much I contributed to this) and Hugh Dormer went off on another death-or-glory venture, so I inherited his hand-picked and splendidly trained No. 4 Troop. I shall not forget sitting round a campfire just before he left with all twenty men around us while he talked to us all about his pride in us, and hopes for us, and had something to say to every one of his, now my, men, with never a word about what he had gone through and was destined to go through again.

From The Times of My Life, Sir John Gorman, page 36:
[July, 1944]
By now Hugh Dormer had rejoined us. As usual there were no details of what he had been up to, but there was great joy in No. 2 Squadron to have him with us again. I feared to begin with that he would take over No. 4 Troop from me, but he soon reassured me that he had been promoted to Captain and would be commanding his own tank as John Madden's Headquarters Officer. When I brought him to the Troop that first evening, they were preparing their evening meal and were overjoyed. We ate the food they gave us and Hugh talked of what he hoped the world would be like for us all when the war ended. He talked of Ireland and the need for Catholics to forget the old hurts and to stand up for values which he believed the Church epitomised - tolerance, honesty, honour, courage.

 

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2062461/hugh-everard-joseph-dormer/
CAPTAIN HUGH EVERARD JOSEPH DORMER
Service Number: 104106
Regiment & Unit: 2nd Bn. Irish Guards
Date of Death: 01 August 1944
Age 25 years old
Buried or commemorated at ST. CHARLES DE PERCY WAR CEMETERY
Grave Reference: I. C. 9.
Location: France
Awards: Distinguished Service Order
Additional Info: Son of Capt. Kenelm Dormer, and of Josephine Dormer, of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Personal Inscription: GREATLY LOVED YOUNGER SON OF THE LATE CAPT. KENELM DORMER AND OF MRS. DORMER. R.I.P.
See cemetery plan




Memorial at Le Tourneur

1944 - 2004
HOMMAGE AU CAPTAINE
H. DORMER (Irish Guards)
MORT EN CE LIEU

ET AUX SOLDAT DE
LA GUARDS ARMOURED DIVISION
OUI ON LIBERE
LE TOURNEUR
LE 31 JUILLET ET 1 ET 2 AOUT.

NOUBLIONS JAMAIS

 

See also

• Hugh Dormer, SOE Agent, Irish Guardsman and Catholic Martyr
• Hugh Dormer - Special Operations Executive (SOE) Agents in France
  
• 
  
• Hugh Dormer: ‘Catholicism made him what he became’ - Catholic Herald
  
• 
  
• Hugh Dormer's Diaries - Hugh Dormer's diaries
• 
  
• SOE - Dormer, Hugh Everard Joseph
  
• 
  
• From The Armoured Micks, 1941- 1945
• 
• Captain Hugh Everard Joseph Dormer
• 

 

Did an online search today regarding another matter and found an 1983 article in The Ampleforth Journal by John Bunting, about a Hugh Dormer and a specific mission Scullion Two, with a Harry Ree, in France. See: http://www.ampleforthjournal.org/V_088.pdf and search for SOE.