| Content Description | In 1939 Myles Thoroton Hildyard joined the Nottinghamshire (Sherwood Rangers) Yeomanry. The regiment was sent to Palestine and Egypt but not called on to undertake much action. Hildyard was able to spend time sightseeing. In 1941 they were sent to Crete. Hildyard was unable to evacuate the island after the fall of Maleme airfield and his unit surrendered to German troops. After a gruelling march from the south to the north of the island he was interned in a prisoner of war camp at Maleme Airfield. Hildyard and a fellow officer, Michael Parish, escaped in bright blue hospital uniforms and spent the next three months hiding on the island, sheltered by Cretans before escaping in a boat to Turkey by way of Greek islands. Both subsequently received the Military Cross.
Myles returned to his regiment and served in North Africa with the 8th Armoured Division, taking part in the Battle of El Alamein. In 1942 Hildyard joined the 10th Armoured Division in North Africa as an intelligence officer. He also worked in Italy in the same role for the 7th Armoured Division, after a brief period back in the Sherwood Rangers as Adjutant to the Lieutenant Colonel 'Flash' Kellett. After his first period of leave in 1944 he accompanied the Normandy invasion, the reconquest of the Low Countries and the march into Germany as brigade intelligence officer. At the conclusion of the war he served briefly as Secretary of Territorial Army and Air Force Association of the County of Nottingham.
This series contains Hildyard's wartime diaries and letters (THF/C/1-6).
The only other items in this series are a calendar of deeds and documents relating to the history of the Thoroton and Hildyard families, compiled by Hildyard between the 1960s and 1990s (THF/C/7); and an unpublished History of Flintham, by Hildyard, 2002 (THF/C/8). |