Denis Eadie MC
Former soldier commended for bravery and leadership during the relief of Kohima
Denis Sheldon Mcgregor Eadie MC, businessman and soldier. Born: 12 February, 1917, in Bridge of Weir. Died: 28 March, 2015, in Edinburgh, aged 98.
W HEN Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September, 1939, Denis Eadie had been working his way round the departments of the family manufacturing firm for precisely a year. The pronouncement saved him from his stint on night shift.
Instead he was immediately commissioned into 506 Field Company Royal Engineers of the Scottish Lowland division. By the time the conflict was over, six long years later, he had been mentioned in despatches three times and awarded an immediate Military Cross for his bravery and leadership under fire during the relief of Kohima – a battle described by Supreme Allied Commander, Lord Louis Mountbatten, as “probably one of the greatest battles in history… naked unparalleled heroism”.
It was a turning point in the Burma Campaign and the Japanese were soon driven out of the region, defeating their plan to advance on India, although the war would drag on for another 15 months.
Eadie, then a captain and second in command of 21 Field Park Company, had previously taken part in the Arakan Campaign of 1942 and had been training on India’s west coast when he was sent to Kohima in April 1944.
The Japanese had already encircled the garrison town of Imphal and, determined to take Kohima, waged a vicious battle around the deputy commissioner’s bungalow. Eadie’s division took over from exhausted Allied troops, separated from the enemy by only the few yards of the adjacent tennis court which was to give the battle its name.
On 2 May Eadie’s task was to get a six-pounder anti-tank gun up to the garrison in Kohima. It had to be manhandled round an enemy position bristling with guns, then towed up a 90ft long ramp, under heavy mortar fire, by a steel wire rope.
Though one man was killed, another wounded and the troop sergeant injured by the gun passing over him, Eadie successfully completed the dangerous mission and got the gun through. He also personally carried the dead and wounded up the ramp.
His MC citation stated: “Captain Eadie throughout the whole of the operation displayed a high standard of leadership and organising ability while under fire. The success of the operation was entirely due to his example and his rapid appreciation of the situation.”
He was decorated with the award in the field, at the roadside, by Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell, Governor General and Viceroy of India.
Towards the end of May Eadie’s commanding officer was killed and he was made a temporary major and given command of the company. Over the next few months the Japanese retreat continued and after the capture of Mandalay his division flew to India before sailing unopposed into Rangoon, via Calcutta where they arrived on Victory in Europe Day. The war with Japan ended that August.
After being stationed at Mingladon Airport he was included in a flight to Bangkok to bring back the first British prisoners of war. It was 3 September, 1945, six years to the day since he had joined up. He finally returned to the UK two months later.
Denis Sheldon Mcgregor Eadie was born in Bridge of Weir, the great grandson of Peter Eadie, who founded the family engineering business of Eadie Bros & Co Lt in Paisley, manufacturer of ring travellers for the textile industry.
He was educated locally before joining his elder brother Russell, firstly at St Piran’s prep school, Maidenhead and then at Oundle School, Peterborough. From there he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge to study mechanical sciences and won a rowing blue stroking the Cambridge crew in the 1938 Boat Race.
After joining the army on the outbreak of the Second World War, following his year at Eadie Bros, he went to the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, trained as a motor contact officer and was posted to Sixth Brigade HQ in France in April 1940 – the day after he had proposed to his sweetheart Isobel Woodsend.
After being Mentioned in Despatches for the first time, he was evacuated from Dunkirk on a destroyer in early June and married Isobel in Paisley Abbey that December, remaining on duties in the UK until April 1942 when he was posted to Burma. On his return, three years and eight months later, he and Isobel were reunited but he was not released from active service until December 1947.
Returning to Eadie Bros, he ensured the company, which employed more than 500 staff in its west of Scotland works and Manchester offices, maintained its position as a leader in its field through his various inventions and improvements to the original devices. He finally retired in 1982 on his 65th birthday.
Eadie, who was chairman of textile-associated ISO Standards committees and the West of Scotland TSB as well as a member of the bank’s board, a Paisley Hammerman Deacon and member of the Grocer’s Company, was also a keen supporter of charities, including the Paisley & Glasgow Society.
He had also helped to found Paisley’s Accord Hospice and supported, and volunteered for various duties at, Paisley Abbey and St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh.
Throughout his life he maintained a great interest in sport, including fishing and shooting, and had been involved in coaching underprivileged boys in boxing as well as Glasgow University Rowing Club and Commonwealth Games oarsmen.
He was also the longest surviving member of Henley’s Leander rowing club, captain of Prestwick Golf Club and a longstanding member of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club.
Whatever he undertook in life he gave it his wholehearted commitment. Charming and generous with his time he was not only a gifted communicator, his reach spanning across the generations, but a wonderful listener.
And for all his wartime, sporting and commercial achievements he remained a warm, humble and modest man who found joy and contentment in pleasures such as the beautiful gardens he lovingly helped to create at his family homes.
Isobel died in 1983 after almost 43 years of marriage, and he never thought he could fall in love twice but in 1991 he married Gillian, with whom he lived very happily in Edinburgh for more than 20 years. He is survived by Gillian and children Brian, Rosemary, Peter and Lucy.
29 APRIL
National day of Japan. 1376: Sir Peter de la Mare took his place as first Speaker in the House of Commons. 1429: Joan of Arc entered Orleans, France, and won victory over English. 1628: Sweden and Denmark signed defence treaty against Duke of Wallenstein, bringing Sweden into the Thirty Years War. 1781: French fleet under Admiral Suffren prevented Britain from seizing Cape of Good Hope. 1842: Corn Law Bill was given Royal assent. 1909: In a revolutionary Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, introduced a “supertax” of sixpence in the pound for anyone earning more than £5,000 a year to pay for oldage pensions and rearmament. He also doubled death duties. 1916: General Henri Philippe Pétain was appointed Chief of the French General Staff. 1918: Germany’s main offensive on Western Front in First World War ended. 1933: Players’ football shirts were first numbered, in the English FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium the numbers running from one to 22. 1935: Glass reflectors, or “cat’s eyes”, invented by Percy Shaw, were first used on British roads. 1945: Allied troops in Germany liberated 32,000 victims of Nazis in concentration camp at Dachau. 1946: Former Japanese leaders were indicted in Tokyo as war criminals. 1947: The first London performance of the musical Oklahoma! was staged. 1965: Australia decided to send troops to South Vietnam. 1973: Israel decided to expand civil rights of its 336,000 Arab citizens to reward Israeli Arab community for loyalty. 1975: United States taskforce evacuated foreigners and Vietnamese by helicopter from Saigon. 1986: The funeral of the Duchess of Windsor took place in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. 1990: Wrecking cranes tore down the section of the Berlin Wall surrounding the Brandenburg Gate, the wall’s most famous section. 1990: Stephen Hendry, aged 21, became the youngest world snooker champion by beating Jimmy White 18-12 in the Embassy Championship. 1992: Rioting began in Los Angeles after the acquittal of four policemen seen beating up a black man, Rodney King, on an amateur video film. 1993: The Queen announced that Buckingham Palace would be open to the public – for an entrance fee. 1995: Tony Blair won a victory in his battle to modernise the Labour Party when it voted to ditch its Clause 4 commitment to nationalisation. 2004: Oldsmobile built its final car, ending 107 years of production. 2009: Gordon Brown’s government suffered a surprise defeat in the Commons on its policy of restricting the right of former Gurkhas to settle in the UK. MPS voted by 267 to 246 in favour of a Liberal Democrat motion that all Gurkhas be offered an equal right of residence. 2011: One million people gathered in London to watch the marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton who became the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge following the ceremony. 2014: Former chancellor Norman Lamont opened Edinburgh’s newest library – the Library of Mistakes – which records a litany of financial disasters, including the Great Depression of the 1930s and the 2008 credit crunch.
BIRTHDAYS
Michelle Pfeiffer, actress, 57; André Agassi, tennis champion, 45; Frank Auerbach, artist, 84; General Sir Peter de la Billière KBE, commander-in-chief of British forces in 1990 Gulf War, 81; Baroness Chalker of Wallasey, 73; Sir Daniel Day-lewis, Oscarwinning actor, 58; Anita Dobson, actress, 66; Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, historian, 72; Adrian Maguire, jockey and trainer, 44; Johnny Miller, golfer, 68; Lloyd Quinan, Scottish broadcaster and former politician, 58; Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild, financier and philanthropist, 79; Jerry Seinfeld, comedian, 61; Uma Thurman, actress, 45; Professor Heinz Wolff, German-british scientist, broadcaster, 87; David Icke, self-styled prophet, 63.
ANNIVERSARIES
irths: 1667 John Arbuthnot, Kincardineshire-born physician; 1769 Duke of Wellington, soldier and statesman; 1818 Alexander II, Tsar of Russia; 1863 William Randolph Hearst, newspaper proprietor; 1895 Sir Malcolm Sargent, conductor; 1899 Duke Ellington, jazz musician and composer; 1901 Hirohito, Emperor of Japan; 1929 Jeremy Thorpe, leader of the Liberal Party 196776; 1931 Lonnie Donegan, skiffle musician and singer. Deaths: 1937 Wallace Carothers, chemist and developer of nylon; 1980 Sir Alfred Hitchcock, film director; 1988 Andrew Cruickshank, actor; 1999 Elspeth March, actress; 2014 Bob Hoskins, actor.