Patrick Delaforce
Officer who led a troop in Normandy after D-day then flourished in advertising and as an author
PATRICK DELAFORCE, who has died aged 94, was variously a soldier, a wine grower and shipper, the head of a New York advertising agency and a prolific author of military histories and biographies. Shortly after D-day, Delaforce landed in Normandy with 13th (Honourable Artillery Company) Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, part of the 11th Armoured Division. He commanded a troop which was equipped with self-propelled 25-pounder field guns.
He took part in fierce fighting at Mont Pinçon and, after the breakout from Normandy, in the rapid advance to Amiens and the liberation of Antwerp. Members of the Belgian Resistance took him to nearby Fort Breendonk, where their fighters had been tortured and murdered by the SS and the Gestapo. It was a horrifying experience, he said later: the place looked like an abattoir.
In Holland, he became forward observation officer (FOO). It was a dangerous job and he was being driven in a Bren gun carrier when they hit an anti-tank mine. His driver was killed instantly. Delaforce was thrown out and suffered broken ribs, a broken arm and a leg which was paralysed. When he regained consciousness, he saw that the carrier was ablaze.
After recovering in a hospital in Brussels, in November 1944 he rejoined his unit. He received his first mention in despatches for his part in a battle on the River Aller. The bridgehead had been destroyed and the advance was held up while it was being repaired.
He and his tank crew together with a small number of infantry and two anti-tank guns were ordered to cross the river and move into a small wooded area and warn the main force if the Germans showed any signs of launching a counter-attack.
They were no sooner in position than a Tiger tank appeared. It knocked out the two anti-tank guns and chased Delaforce and a comrade through the wood. The comrade fired his Piat (Projector, Infantry, Anti-tank) but missed. Delaforce was only armed with a Sten gun and a pistol, but they made such a racket that the Tiger gave up the pursuit and lumbered off.
As FOO with the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, he was among the first battle groups to go into the Bergenbelsen concentration camp. He said afterwards that he was standing close to Josef Kramer, the camp leader, Irma Grese, an SS warden, and the camp doctor, Fritz Klein. In the midst of the dead and the dying, the three were smiling because a promise had been extracted from the British (who had been told that the camp was in the grip of a typhus epidemic) that the guards would be given 24 hours to escape.
In an action on the River Elbe, he was only a few feet away from a grenade when it exploded. “There was blood everywhere,” Delaforce said afterwards. “I called for help. The medic took out as much of the shrapnel as possible but there were several pieces that had to stay inside me. They would make a good iron tonic, the man said.”
Shortly after the end of the campaign, he was told to go to Hamburg, where the guards from the nearby Neuengamme concentration camp were to face trial at a war-crimes tribunal. This was held on the stage of one of the theatres. There were a judge advocate and three officers but, as the junior officer, Delaforce had to give his verdict first to avoid the possibility of being influenced by his superiors.
The following year, having been promoted to captain, he took part in a similar trial at Oldenburg, northern Germany. A few weeks later, he was one of the official witnesses when Albert Pierrepoint hanged many of the condemned at Hamelin prison.
Patrick de Fleuriett Delaforce was born at Reigate on November 28 1923. His father won an MC in the First World War and served with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in Brussels in the latter part of the Second. His family had been port wine producers and shippers for generations and could trace their history back to medieval Aquitaine.
Patrick was educated at Winchester and went up to Queen’s University, Belfast, for a year before enlisting in the Army. He attended an Octu at Catterick, Yorkshire, and was commissioned into the Suffolk Yeomanry. After the 11th Armoured Division was disbanded, he was transferred to 7th Armoured Division. He spent two years with 3 RHA in Schleswig-holstein as Intelligence Officer before resigning from the Army and joining the family business in Oporto. As the sales director, he was responsible for marketing in some 60 countries.
In 1958 he joined the board of Intam Limited, an international subsidiary of the London Press Exchange. This led to his appointment in 1961 as vicepresident and general manager of Otto-intam, an international advertising agency based in New York. On his arrival, he was accompanied by his wife, a beautiful young actress who was frequently mistaken for Jackie Kennedy.
In 1962 he bought a 17th-century farmhouse and vineyard in the Lot. His children trampled the grapes in a bath tub. The wine was terrible, but the truffles that he nurtured were delicious. He researched his Huguenot forebears for a family history and then wrote a series of guidebooks for travellers to France and Italy.
Biographies of his heroes followed. These included a life of Samuel Pepys’s wife, a life of Nelson’s wife and an account of Wellington’s life and loves. There were also many books about the Second World War. In total he wrote close to 50 books, some of which have been translated into foreign languages and have run into several editions.
After the end of the war he was presented with the Bronze Cross Orange-nassau at the Royal Palace in The Hague. In 2015, the French Government appointed him a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur.
Patrick Delaforce married first, in 1949, Dinah Clodd. The marriage was dissolved and he married secondly, in 1960, Gillian Kitching. She predeceased him; he is survived by a son and a daughter from his first marriage and two daughters from his second.
Patrick Delaforce, born November 28 1923, died January 22 2018