Major Tom Bird
Company commander during the Snipe action at Alamein whose force knocked out 57 enemy tanks
MAJOR TOM BIRD, who has died two days short of his 99th birthday, was awarded a DSO and two MCS in the North Africa campaign and subsequently had a successful career as an architect. The Second Battle of El Alamein began on October 23 1942. After several days of bitter positional fighting, on October 26 Allied forces captured a sector close to Kidney Ridge, an important strategic feature. That afternoon, 2nd Bn The Rifle Brigade (2 RB), part of 7th Motor Brigade, 1st Armoured Division, commanded by Lieutenant-colonel Victor Turner, received hurried orders to capture Snipe, an outpost in a small, oval depression of scrubby desert about a mile and a half south-west of the ridge.
At about 2300 hours, Turner moved off with a mixed force behind a creeping barrage. They encountered scattered enemy fire and some strafing from aircraft before reaching the outpost and digging in. Bird was in command of 2 RB’S Support Company, an anti-tank unit equipped with six-pounder guns. His orders were to coordinate the fire of the 15 guns of the battalion and the six guns of 239 Battery, 76th Anti-tank Regiment RA.
By 0345 hours the guns were offloaded and ready for action, but no sooner had 2 RB organised its defences than the outpost was attacked. This was repulsed and, at first light, Bird’s gunners were presented with two columns of enemy tanks, broadside on, moving westwards.
They opened fire and destroyed a number of German and Italian tanks and self-propelled guns. Retribution followed swiftly. Axis tanks and artillery, hidden in hollows around the position, shelled the battalion and, for a time, part of the outpost disappeared in smoke, flying sand and explosions. Some of Bird’s guns were found to be too exposed and he had to move into the open to re-site them. During this perilous operation, his second-incommand was killed.
In the intense heat of noon, the first onslaught of five tank attacks that day was launched at them. Several of Bird’s guns were knocked out. His small force was running short of ammunition, casualties were mounting fast and there was little more than field dressings to tend to wounds. An additional hazard was that they were between the enemy lines and there were costly incidents of “blue on blue” losses.
Three carriers, loaded with the most badly wounded men, were able to make a dash for the high ground and reach safety but ambulances and supply lorries were pinned down. As soon as they showed themselves above the crest they were met with a hail of machine-gun fire.
Bird went from gun to gun under relentless shelling, lurching in and out of the dunes in his jeep, re-distributing what remained of the ammunition, directing fire, rallying his men and, at critical moments, taking the place of wounded men in his gun crews. He was wounded in the head at about 1400 hours, but he refused to be evacuated and carried on until dusk when the effects of concussion and the hot sun knocked him out.
At 2300 hours the order was received to withdraw. The citation for the award of a DSO to Major Bird paid tribute to his courage and outstanding leadership and stated that his force had accounted for knocking out 57 tanks, hitting others and destroying guns and transport. Lieutenant Colonel Turner, who was wounded at the height of the action, received a VC. He insisted that the award was for all his men. He recommended Sergeant Charles Calistan MM for a VC, but a Distinguished Conduct Medal was awarded.
Twenty-one other decorations were given to members of Support Company and 239 Battery RA. This was, perhaps, the largest number of awards for a battalion group action in the course of the war, but the battle had cost Turner’s force all but one of its six-pounder guns, and 72 casualties.
Starved of fuel and weakened by the loss of 10 per cent of his armour at this pivotal moment in the conflict, Rommel’s prospects of shaping the battle as he wished disappeared.
Thomas Arthur Bird, always known as Tom, was born at Wargrave, Berkshire, on August 11 1918 and educated at Winchester. There, he was in the same house as Claud (later Lord) Phillimore, one of the most prolific of post-war country house architects. He learnt to draw and for a time thought of becoming an artist in the footsteps of his uncle Kenneth Bird, the cartoonist “Fougasse” and editor of Punch.
In 1936 Bird entered the Architectural Association and spent a year in the office of Maxwell Fry Associates, a leading practice. In 1938 he joined the Rifle Brigade’s Supplementary Reserve and was called up, as a commissioned officer, on the outbreak of the Second World and posted to 2RB. His elder brother was killed during the defence of Calais while serving with 1RB.
Bird arrived in Palestine in November 1939. In January 1941, during an attack on Tobruk, he was in command of a carrier platoon. He reconnoitred the Axis defences under heavy fire and, having surrounded a strong force protected by mines and booby traps, forced it to surrender. He was awarded his first MC.
On the night of July 25 1942, near Gebel Kalakh, Egypt, he led a fighting patrol across a mile and a half of open ground under a full moon. When they were half way to their objective, they came under intense machine-gun fire and, 100 yards short of their objective, they were held up by barbed wire defences.
The patrol got through these before overrunning three enemy posts and capturing two officers, 15 other ranks and the entire crew of an anti-tank gun. Despite coming under heavy mortar and small arms fire, Bird succeeded in withdrawing his men without casualties. His courage and daring, determination and leadership were recognised with a bar to his MC.
After the North African Campaign, in 1943 he moved to India and served as ADC first to General (later Field Marshal) Sir Claude Auchinleck and then to Field Marshal Sir Archibald (later Lord) Wavell. He returned to 2RB in September 1944, but he was badly wounded in the advance to Arnhem. After recovering, he became ADC to Field Marshal “Jumbo” Wilson, Chief of the British Joint Staff Mission, in Washington.
Bird left the Army in 1945 and, having returned to the Architectural Association, received his diploma in 1948. He rejoined Maxwell Fry in 1950 and spent the next four years with the firm before setting up on his own. In 1955, he entered into a business partnership with Richard Tyler, whom he met when both were recovering from wounds in a hospital in Cairo.
They became one of the small, but select, group of post-war architects who turned their back on Modernism and continued to design in a traditional manner, chiefly for country house owners. The practice was responsible for restoring, remodelling or rebuilding a large number of houses throughout England.
In 1985 Bird retired from architecture. Settled in a village in the Chilterns, he concentrated on painting watercolours. Modest and goodhumoured, in 1989 he served as High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire. As a younger man, he was a fine sportsman. He climbed and skied in the Alps and played good tennis and passable golf. As a schoolboy at Winchester he opened the batting for the XI, and he subsequently played for Berkshire and the MCC.
Tom Bird married, in 1945, Alice Hunsaker, the daughter of a distinguished Bostonian aeronautical engineer. She predeceased him and he is survived by their two sons and a daughter.
Major Tom Bird, born August 11 1918, died August 9 2017