Colonel Freddie Kemp
Officer who served in Ulster and the Falklands and went on to support bereaved military families
COLONEL FREDDIE KEMP, who has died aged 66, was a Parachute Engineer; despite having seen active service in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan, he regarded his appointment to the Defence Inquests Unit (DIU) as his most challenging assignment.
In 2009 Kemp was appointed to the DIU as a case officer. Established by the MOD, its role was to support bereaved families who had lost a relation during training or on operations. Coroners were struggling to cope with several hundred military inquests going back to 2002, mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In many cases the circumstances in which the death had occurred were completely outside their experience, and families, already grieving, had the additional stress of worrying about the way in which these inquests were being handled.
At the request of the Director Special Forces, Kemp took on all the inquests relating to Special Forces personnel for four years from 2009. This often involved tracing key witnesses or demonstrating weaponry or equipment as part of his task of providing coroners with all the information they needed to understand exactly what had happened.
Above all, however, the role meant engaging with families or former comrades who might have to relive the trauma of the death of a loved one or a friend in the sometimes daunting environment of a courtroom. Kemp possessed the exceptional qualities required to give crucial support in what was often a sad, distressing and emotionally draining process.
Frederick Charles Kemp was born in Brighton on January 18 1954. His father had served with the 9th Parachute Battalion during the Second World War and subsequently with the Royal Engineers.
Young Freddie was educated at Brighton Hove and Sussex Grammar School and the Welbeck Defence Sixth Form College. He attended Sandhurst and in 1973 he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers.
While serving with 9 Parachute Squadron (9 Para Sqn) in Co Armagh, Northern Ireland, on a route reconnaissance mission in a covert car, Kemp had a narrow escape. A vehicle overtook him and was blown up by a large culvert bomb.
It had been detonated by a command wire from a firing point which afforded a safe escape route for the terrorists, but the section of road immediately before the culvert was hidden from them and the Provisional IRA had missed the “target” car.
In 1982 Kemp was second-in-command of 9 Para Sqn when it was deployed to the Falkland Islands after the Argentine invasion as part of the British Force. On June 8 the Royal Navy vessels Sir Tristram and Sir Galahad were unloading in Bluff Cove when they were attacked by enemy Skyhawks and badly damaged.
Large areas were on fire and the air was thick with smoke from burning oil. In horrific conditions, Kemp set up helicopter casualty evacuation sites at Fitzroy to help evacuate more than 200 wounded and badly burned soldiers, some of whom were attached to his squadron. The memories of that terrible day never left him.
A posting to the Royal Brunei Malay Regiment followed. He recruited and trained a Combat Engineer Squadron and was awarded the Brunei Independence Medal by the Sultan. Despite the constraints of a shoestring budget, he and his family visited Australia, New Zealand, French Polynesia and the US on their way back to England.
In 1991 Kemp resigned from the regular Army to set up his own company. He transferred to the Parachute Regiment as a reservist and, having joined the 10th Battalion, served in a number of appointments, including that of training major of Cambridge University OTC.
After selling his business, he worked for a property company. It was at this time that he met his second wife, Jane, and together they bought a house in France. In 2001 he joined HQ 16 Parachute Brigade as Liaison Officer, initially to the Special Forces in Afghanistan and, in 2003, to 3 Commando Brigade during the second Gulf War.
In 2013, after four years at the MOD, he was appointed OBE for his work at the DIU. He was very proud to have received the award, but at the investiture at Buckingham Palace he insisted that no reference was made to his role as a case officer. He did not wish to appear to have been rewarded on the back of the grief of others.
He was promoted to colonel and led the team that implemented the Defence Youth Engagement Review. He retired from the Army in 2018. He had a close connection with Arnhem through Rodney Pearson – the father of Kate, his first wife – who had taken part in Operation Market Garden in 1944. Kemp parachuted into Arnhem many times and led battlefield tours there.
He was diagnosed with renal cancer in 2011. He encouraged the doctors to test drugs on him so that others could be helped by what was learnt.
Freddie Kemp married first, in 1977, Kate Pearson. The marriage was dissolved, and in 2003 he married Jane Priest, who survives him with a son and a daughter from his first marriage.
Freddie Kemp, born January 18 1954, died September 18 2020