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Re: Great Escape Camp POW Passes

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: January 09, 2003

"LORD ALLENDALE DIES AT HOME, AGED 80
By Staff Reporter
Published in The Hexham Courant on 03/01/2003

LORD Allendale, the Honourable Wentworth Hubert Charles Beaumont, died peacefully aged 80 on December 27 at his home of Bywell Hall in Stocksfield.

Best known for his skill with horses and for his love of his country estate, Lord Allendale was a great family man who was a keen shot and loved the wild countryside of Northumberland.

He was born on September 12, 1922, in the Beaumont family home at 144 Piccadilly, London, next door to the home of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the then Duke and Duchess of York.

Known to his friends and family as Wenty, he was educated at Eton, and spent most of his childhood at Bretton Park in Yorkshire.

In 1941, he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve straight from Eton. He was one of the first RAF pilots to be trained in Canada under the air training scheme, and flew 71 missions in Spitfires.

In May 1942, aged just 19 he was reported missing in air operations.

He had been shot down while attacking a flakship off Valchesen, Holland, and was missing for three weeks.

Eventually, a message reached his parents that he had made a successful crash landing, but had sustained wounds to his knee and shoulder.

Lord Allendale was a prisoner of war at the infamous Stalag Luft III camp in Sagan, Poland for three years - the same camp from which on March 24, 1944, 80 British RAF officers and American airmen crawled through a 10-metre deep, 111 metre long tunnel in the now famous "Great Escape".

Lord Allendale was liberated by the Soviet Red Army.

He was then stationed in India where he served as a Viceregal Aide de Camp to two viceroys; first to Lord Wavell and then to Lord Mountbatten in 1946-47.

In 1947 he met his bride-to-be the Hon. Sarah Ismay, daughter of Churchill's Chief of Defence Staff General Lord Ismay and Lady Ismay.

On February 16, 1948, five months after getting engaged, he returned to Britain to marry Sarah. The Queen, with Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, attended the wedding at St Margaret's, Westminster.

When serving as ADC to Lord Mountbatten, Lord Allendale and his fiancée were travelling to Delhi from Simla by train when they were caught up in the civil war between Indian Muslims and Hindus.

A bomb, set off on the platform at Sonepat station, signalled an attack on all Muslim passengers by the Hindus. Men, women, and children were pulled out of the train by their Hindu fellow-travellers and butchered.

Lord Allendale hid his Muslim servant under the carriage seat and piled suitcases in front of him. Two well-dressed and seemingly well-educated Hindus presented themselves at the door to the carriage and demanded the right to search for a Muslim they believed to be travelling with them.

Lord Allendale refused, and the intruders left. Maybe they were impressed by his ADC armband - or by the two revolvers he and Sarah were flourishing.

The servant, who had fainted from fright, was the only Muslim to arrive alive at Delhi.

Upon returning to Britain, Lord Allendale gained employment with Savills Estate Agents, an experience which stood him in good stead when he took over the running of the family estate in 1955, acceding to his title in 1956.

He was passionate about his mixed estate, which included tenant farms, fishing, shooting and sporting rights, forestry, and a grouse moor.

His particular interests were forestry and the moorland at Allenheads. He was a very good and keen shot, and spent most of his time during the grouse shooting season on Allenheads Moor at either Bywell Hall or Allenheads Hall.

His other great passion was for horse racing, and he bred many fine racehorses at Bywell, including winners of the Queen's Vase at Ascot and the Goodwood Cup.

He served as a steward at Newcastle, Carlisle, York, Ripon, Thirsk, Ascot, and Newmarket, and was elected to the Jockey Club in 1958.

He served two terms as a steward of the Jockey Club during 1963-65 and again in the early 1980s. He was also chairman of Newcastle Racecourse.

The best horses bred at Bywell were Tenterhooks, winner of the Queen's Vase and the Goodwood Cup in 1957, Alignement, winner of the Ebor handicap in York in 1969, and Mark Henry, winner of many races in the late 1970s and a horse which had the unusual record of having won over all three disciplines at Ayr Racecourse.

It was around this time that Lord Allendale was divorced from his wife, Sarah. He did not remarry, and the two remained close friends.

His grandson Wentworth Beaumont, (23), said Lord Allendale spent the last few weeks of his life at Bywell Hall, touring the gardens in a golf buggy, planning which trees he wanted planted out and "keeping the gardeners on their toes."

He said: "He was a good grandfather. My sisters and I would love to go and see him, and I can never once remember him having got angry.

"He was very gentle, and would encourage mischievous behaviour amongst us children.

"He was not a grand man - he was a true gentleman."

Lord Allendale is survived by three sons; the eldest Wentworth Peter Ismay Beaumont born in 1948, succeeds to the title.

There will be a Service of Thanksgiving at Hexham Abbey on January 6, at 11.30am.

Hugh Macknight"