John Tillett (British Army officer)

Colonel John Maurice Arthur Tillett (4 November 1919 - 14 December 2014) was a British Army officer who had a critical role in the planning of Operation Deadstick on D-Day, 6 June 1944, during the Second World War. He was one of the last surviving British Army officers to have served with 6th Airborne Division in Operation Mallard on 6 June 1944 and in Operation Varsity on 24 March 1945. He later commanded the Ugandan Army.

Early life

Tillett was born in Ipswich, Suffolk and was educated at Ipswich Grammar School. He went to Germany on a school hockey tour in 1936, there he encountered the Hitler Youth organisation which made him an honorary member. In Germany, he saw army manoeuvres in the Harz mountains which convinced him that war was approaching and he enlisted in the Suffolk Regiment (TA) in 1937. Tillett was commissioned into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in August 1940 and was posted to the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (The 52nd).

Normandy 1944

He became Adjutant of the 2nd Ox and Bucks (the 52nd) early in 1944 and was closely involved in the planning of the coup de main operation, led by Major John Howard, Company Commander of D Company, 2nd Ox and Bucks, to capture two vital bridges: Pegasus Bridge and Horsa Bridge in the opening minutes of D-Day. On 6 June 1944, Tillett's glider, piloted by glider pilots from the Glider Pilot Regiment, landed, near Ranville, Normandy, at approximately 21.00hrs, along with the rest of 2nd Ox and Bucks, 6th Airlanding Brigade, as part of Operation Mallard. After holding the line on the Breville ridge and sustaining many casualties, Tillett and the 2nd Ox and Bucks in August 1944 took part in the British breakout and advance to the Seine, known as Operation Paddle. The battalion returned to Bulford Camp, Wiltshire, in early September 1944.

Operation Varsity 1945

In November 1944, Major John Howard received serious injuries following a road traffic accident and Tillett, promoted to Major, replaced him as Company Commander of D Company, 2nd Ox and Bucks. He was to lead the company in the Ardennes: the Battle of the Bulge, holding the line in the Netherlands and in Operation Varsity: the air assault landing over the River Rhine on 24 March 1945. Operation Varsity was the last major battle on the Western Front during the Second World War. The gliders carrying the 2nd Ox and Bucks, including the glider carrying Tillett and D Company HQ, landed in daylight, north of Hamminkeln, east of the River Rhine, on the north-east perimeter of 6th Airborne Division's landing zone. The Germans met the landing gliders with ferocious fire in the air and on the ground; the 2nd Ox and Bucks lost 400 killed or injured out of a total battalion strength of 800 men. Tillett's company was reduced to 3 officers and 58 men. In the battle of the landing area his company captured and held all its objectives. He continued to lead his company in the advance across Germany to the Baltic sea. During the advance, in woods, near Luneburg, Tillett and his company discovered Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They were ordered to continue to pursue the enemy rather than investigate further; the Camp Guards having by this stage fled. At the end of the war Tillett was present at Wismar for the meeting between British commander Field Marshal Montgomery and his Russian counterpart Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, for which the 2nd Ox and Bucks (the 52nd) provided the Guard of Honour. Tillett received a Mention in Despatches for his wartime service.

Post World War 11

In September 1945, he was posted to Palestine with the 2nd Ox and Bucks and the rest of 6th Airborne Division. He attended the Staff College, Camberley, in 1949. Tillett served with the 1st Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, 43rd and 52nd from 1953 at Osnabruck, West Germany. In 1955 he became an Instructor in the Nuclear Weapons Tactical Wing of the School of Infantry, Warminster, Wiltshire. He witnessed the British atomic weapons tests which took place at Maralinga in South Australia; the effects of which were to subsequently cause him health problems. In 1959 Tillett became second-in-command of the 1st Green Jackets (43rd and 52nd) based at Knook Camp, near Warminster. He was later posted to Uganda and became Commanding Officer of the 1st Ugandan Rifles, formerly the 4th King's African Rifles, based in Ginja, Uganda. One of his junior officers in the battalion was Idi Amin who was later to succeed Tillett in command of the battalion. Tillett, in the rank of local Brigadier, subsequently commanded the whole of the Ugandan Army. He later served in Ottawa, Canada and at HQ SHAPE. He retired from the Army in 1969 and served as a Retired Officer mainly involved in officer recruitment for the Royal Green Jackets.

Later life

Tillett became curator of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Museum at Slade Park Barracks, Oxford and had a key role in the development of the new Royal Green Jackets Museum in Winchester, Hampshire. He wrote a brief history of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry from the regiment's origins in 1741 and 1755 to the Royal Green Jackets up to 1992. He was the last-known surviving 2nd Ox and Bucks (the 52nd) officer to have taken part in the gliderborne air assault landing on Normandy, on D-Day, 6 June 1944. Tillett organised and regularly attended the regimental commemorations of the anniversaries of the battle for Normandy at Bénouville and of the River Rhine Crossing at Hamminkeln, Germany. He was the administrator of the Darell-Brown Memorial Trust. He lived in Micheldever, Hampshire.

He married Joan Lawson in 1943 with whom he was to have two sons and a daughter.

Colonel John Tillett died on 14 December 2014.

References

Obituary The Daily Telegraph 27.01.2015, Obituary The Independent 05.02.2015, Obituary The Times 27.03.2015, The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (The 43rd/52nd Regiment of Foot) Philip Booth (1971), Gliderborne: The story of the 2nd Battalion, The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (The 52nd) in World War 11 (2007), The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry War Chronicle, Volume 1V 1944/45 (1954), An Outline History of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Colonel JMA Tillett (1993), The Pegasus Diaries John Howard and Penny Bates (2006), Go To It! An Illustrated History of 6 Airborne Division Peter Harclerode (2000), Pegasus Bridge Stephen Ambrose (1984), One More River: The Rhine Crossings of 1945 Peter Allen (1980), The Last Drop: Operation Varsity March 24–25, 1945 Stephen L Wright (2008) and Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-45 Max Hastings (2004).