MAJOR SIMON ANTHONY CUNNINGHAM TRESTRAIL MC

Simon Trestrail – who preferred to be known as Charles – was born at Long Ashton, Somerset in 1917, the eldest child of Alfred and Margaret Cunningham.  His father, a solicitor and a Territorial had sold his practice and taken a commission in the Cheshire Regiment in 1915.  He had a distinguished military career, was mentioned in dispatches and in 1919 was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his part in an action in October 1918.  He was wounded and gassed on the Somme in 1916.

Right: Charles Trestrail, front row centre.  Five of the boys in this 1935 photograph would lose their lives in the war.

The family moved to New Milton in Hampshire in 1923/4.  Alfred became a partner in a firm of solicitors and Clerk to the Urban District Council.  Charles went to King’s School, Bruton between 1927 and 1935 where he was a prefect and member of the Officer Training Corps and captained the rugby XV and cricket and hockey XIs.

Alfred died unexpectedly in 1935 and the family moved initially to Loxwood and later to Newpound Lane, Wisborough Green.  Charles joined the Dorset Regiment as a private soldier and in 1937 entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst which he represented at cricket.  He was commissioned into the Indian Army in 1939.

As an officer in the 11th Sikh Regiment, Simon saw service in the Sudan, the Western Desert and Italy.  He was wounded in 1941, was twice mentioned in despatches and in 1942 was awarded the Military Cross for, in the words of the recommendation for award, his ‘coolness under heavy shell fire’ and his ‘fortitude and bearing’ in action at the Battle of Gazala.  Surrounded by enemy troops, with many of his battalion captured, he lay low for three hours, and under cover of darkness he escaped beyond the Germans’ perimeter wire and after a mile came across an abandoned Matilda tank with the engine running!  He drove this to the British lines and duly handed it over to 4th Armoured Brigade.

In 1944, Charles’ division took part in the Second Battle of Casino (in which the monastery of Monte Casino was destroyed), and then the third and fourth battles.  The 4th Indian Division was then sent to Greece, but Charles joined another division in the role of Brigade Major.  The war ended for Charles on 2nd May 1945 when the whole German Army Group for Italy and Austria surrendered unconditionally.

Charles had had a hard war but a distinguished one.  He had gained steady promotion, been wounded, and received awards for his gallantry and conduct.  It is, therefore, a tragic irony that after all that he should be killed in the most banal way two weeks after the end of hostilities,  in a motoring accident when he rolled his jeep while on his way to a dentist’s appointment.

Charles Trestrail is buried in the Coriano Ridge War Cemetery in Italy.  In addition to the Wisborough Green War Memorial, he is remembered on the war memorial cross at New Milton, Hampshire, a brass tablet in St Mary Magdalene church, New Milton and the memorial hall at King’s School, Bruton.

Andrew Strudwick