| August 21 1996 | OBITUARIES |
©Brigadier Roy Smith-Hill, CBE, Royal Marines, Combined Operations staff officer, died on August 4 aged 99. He was born on May 5, 1897.
After the collapse of Tsarist Russia, Britain's North Russia Expeditionary Force was initially designed to prevent Germany capturing the ports of Murmansk and Archangel and advancing through Finland. The end of the First World War saw some 200,000 foreign troops in Russia, including 20,000 British; the threat had ceased to be German and had become Bolshevik.
But an international policy to support the White Russians and, in Churchill's words, "to strangle at birth the Bolshevik State" became increasingly unpopular in Britain. In January 1919 the Daily Express was probably echoing public opinion when it said that "the frozen plains of Eastern Europe are not worth the bones of a single grenadier".
It was in this social and political climate that the 6th Battalion was scratched together from a company of the Royal Marine Artillery and companies from each of the three naval port depots. Very few of their officers, including Smith-Hill, had seen any land fighting. Their original purpose had, in any case, been merely to deploy to Flensburg to supervise a plebiscite to decide whether Schleswig-Holstein should be German or Danish, and their training in "aid to the civil power" reflected this. Many of the Marines were under 19 years old and customarily not employed overseas, while others were ex-prisoners of war and believed themselves exempt. All recognised that Britain was not at war with Russia.
There was thus a crisis of morale when, at short notice, they were shipped instead to Murmansk to assist in the withdrawal of British forces. Still not expecting to do any fighting, the battalion was ordered forward under army command to hold certain outposts and, on August 28, 1919, to take the village of Koikor from the "Bolos", as the Bolsheviks were known.
The attack in company strength was not pressed home effectively and resulted in three men killed and 18 wounded, including the battalion commander who had somewhat ineffectually led the attack himself. Equipped with machineguns and artillery, the Bolsheviks were very far from being the disorganised rabble that had been expected. A week of sporadic operations revealed the battalion's low morale and lack of experience at all levels, with several incidents of indiscipline and lack of aggressive spirit.
Smith-Hill's company was then ordered to take the same village and was repulsed; the battalion adjutant was killed and both the company officers senior to Smith-Hill incapacitated. Now in charge of the company, Smith-Hill held the position for two hours until ordered to retire.
The next day, faced with a further attack, Smith-Hill's company refused to obey orders, and withdrew from the front line. Smith-Hill pursued them and ordered them to fall in, telling them that they would all be court-martialled. And, indeed, 93 men from the battalion were tried by court martial; 13 were sentenced to death and others received substantial sentences of penal servitude.
For their lack of leadership, all the officers, save two, suffered penalties such as dismissal; Smith-Hill received an expression of Their Lordships' severe displeasure.
In the event, the acquittal of a Marine who was later tried at Chatham after recovery from a wound cast doubt on the proceedings; a series of petitions and parliamentary questions resulted in the withdrawal of the death sentences and the reduction of the rest. Smith-Hill's request for a court martial to clear his name was refused.
He afterwards wrote: "If an unbiased inquiry had been held in England, the battalion might have been shown up as second-rate, but not cowardly and mutinous." A contemporary Admiralty minute acknowledged a lack of care in raising and training this temporary battalion, given its eventual employment.
Roy Smith-Hill was born in Aspatria, Cumberland, his father being the principal of the local agricultural college. During the First World War he served in battleships of the Grand Fleet. In 1922, while in the light cruiser Carysfort, he took part in the extensive naval operations which attempted to restrain Kemal Ataturk's ambitions in Thrace. He later served in the battlecruiser Hood, before being appointed to the Army Staff College in 1935.
There then followed four years' secondment to the Army in staff and regimental posts. This was excellent preparation for what was to be his major contribution to the Allies in the Second World War. Clearly a natural staff officer, with a talent for orderly planning and an ability to persuade others by charm or, if that failed, by personality, he was in important posts for the abortive attack on Dakar in September 1940, the assault landings at Algiers during Operation Torch, and the subsequent invasion of Sicily in July 1943. His experience was put to good use on the staff of the Director of Combined Operations at the Admiralty before and after D-Day.
After the war he commanded the Infantry Training Centre at Lympstone and, although allegedly liable to stand to attention when hearing Rule Britannia played, he was finally Commandant of the Royal Marine School of Music and oversaw the amalgamation of the school at Burford with that at Deal. He retired in 1950, having been appointed CBE in 1946.
Always a Cumberland man, he retired to his old home at Braithwaite with its view of Skiddaw and for a few years took up chicken farming which "didn't really help the pension much". He was also the County Cadet Commander for four years and a Deputy Lieutenant for Cumberland from 1955 to 1973, resigning to make space for younger men when the county was combined with Westmorland to form Cumbria.
He was Area Civil Defence Officer for six years, a president of the local cricket club and a churchwarden. Blessed with remarkable recall and a sound old-fashioned education at Seascale and St Bees, he was able even in old age to recite poetry in English, Greek and Latin, and was a renowned storyteller.
His wife Sybil died in 1974 and he is survived by their two sons and two daughters.
This article is reproduced from The Times, 21 August, 1996. Please visit The Times newspaper site at http://www.the-times.co.uk/ and register to read the original edition.