Brigadier David STILEMAN died peacefully in hospital full of Christian hope on Friday 24th June 2011 aged 87. Much loved husband of Barbie, loving father, grandfather and great-grandfather. Private family funeral. A Service of Thanksgiving will take place at 2.30pm on Friday 8th July at Emmanuel Church, Ridgway, Wimbledon, London SW19 4QL. No flowers please. A newspaper announcement will be in The Times & Daily Telegraph Sat 25 June The address for letters of condolence is: Mrs DM Stileman (Barbie) 8 The Grange Wimbledon London SW19 4PT His son James served in the 3RGJ.

He was severely wounded when serving with 8RB during the push through NW Europe in 1944.

You might wish to see the Brigadier's career with the RB, KRRC, Depot and other areas,

STILEMAN, DAVID MADRYLL

b. 9 Apr 1924; ed Wellington.   2/Lieut (Em) 22.5.43; W/S Lieut 22.11.43;

A/Capt 5.12.45; 2/Lieut (Reg) 9.4.45; Lieut 9.10.46; Capt 9.4.51; T/Major 7.4.55; Major 9.4.58; Lt-Col 1965; Col 1970; Brig 1976; retd 1979. 8 RB North West Europe 1943-45; 1 RB BAOR 1945-46; WT Instr RMAS 1946-48; empld Para Bde 1948-51; 2 KRRC 1951-53; SC 20 Armd Bde 1953-55; 1 RB Kenya, Malaya, UK 1955-58; Instr Mons OCS 1958-59; empld Somaliland Scouts 1959-61; Instr RASC Offrs' Sch 1962-63; 2GJ KRRC 1963-64; Comd GJ Depot 1965-66; CI Small Arms Wing Hythe 1967-68; Comd NCOs' Wing Sch of Inf 1969; Def Adviser Nigeria 1970-71; Comd Comdt Wing Sch of Inf 1972-74; Brig E Dist 1976-79.

OBE (1967), Yeoman Usher of The Black Rod 1979-88.

Obituary by kind permission of The Times Newspaer 11 August 2011

Brigadier David Stileman

Rifle Brigade officer who took part in Operation Goodwood where he learnt important lessons from a shrewd German adversary.

David Stileman would ruefully explain to Staff College students attending the Normandy battlefield tour that he had survived the Second World War because of shrewdly withheld enemy fire.  lt was the morning of Operation Goodwood on June 18, 1944, that the M commanding officer of 8th Battalion The Rifle Brigade ordered him to take his motor platoon - mounted in lightly armoured half-tracks - to check whether there were any enemy in the hamlet of Hubert-Folie.

The approaches were wide open, giving any German anti-tank guns concealed there a turkey-shoot opportunity into the flank of 11th Armoured Brigade as it advanced southwards. The place had to be cleared and it was the infantry's job to clear it. Stileman led his half-tracks hell for leather down the little main street without a shot being fired. Assuming the hamlet cleared, 8th Rifle Brigade pressed on but the enemy were there, and in other hamlets and patches of cover to the flank of three British armoured divisions advancing side by side.

The German 88mm guns, including those of an anti-aircraft battery that the local commander, Colonel Hans von Luck, ordered to lower its gun muzzles to engage the British armour, opened fire. More than 300 British tanks were lost or severely damaged that day. Montgomery did not intend Goodwood to be an attempt to break out from the east of the Normandy bridgehead but - in accordance with his strategic plan- to draw the enemy armour there to give the 1st (US) Army a clear run to break out on the west. It had that effect, even though it proved a costly enterprise.

Although Stileman survived that day, two weeks later he was shot in the head by a sniper, the bullet exiting through his neck. After eight operations he returned to duty before the end of the northwest Europe campaign. For many years after the war he and Colonel Hans-Ulrich von Luck und Witten, to give him his full styling, appeared on the Goodwood battlefield explaining how to defeat massed armour in open ground dotted with hamlets and farmsteads; by then a prospect faced by Nato forces confronting the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact on the north German plain.

David Madry II Stileman was the son of Commander Arthur Stileman, RN.  At Wellington he excelled at rugby and while an instructor at RMA Sandhurst in 1947-48 played for Harlequins and  Berkshire and had a trial for England. His preoccupation with the game was surpassed only by his Christian faith; he played his last rugby match aged 51 and hosted Bible study in his House of Lords flat when he was Yeoman Usher to Black Rod after leaving the Army.

His regimental service included the Mau Mau campaign in Kenya with lst Battalion The Rifle Brigade and then in Malaya during the communist insurrection. Seeking variety, he undertook a secondment as a company commander with the Somali land Scouts in the late 1950s as the territory approached

independence. There was intense competition for service with the Scouts among the local youths; Stileman would kick a rugby ball into the crowd of applicants and grant places to those who emerged - battered, bruised and sometimes bitten - with it.

On promotion to lieutenant-colonel, he commanded the Royal Green Jackets depot and training centre in Winchester, for which service he was appointed OBE. He was later the defence adviser to the British High Commissioner in Lagos, a sensitive post in which two of his predecessors had incurred the displeasure of the Nigerian Government of the day.

He retired from the Army in 1979, having completed his service as the deputy commander of Eastern District, based in Nottingham, 1976-79. Immediately after leaving, he took up the post of assistant to Black Rod as Yeoman Usher in the House of Lords.

These duties did not deflect him from joining Colonel von Luck at the British Staff College annual battlefield tours in Normandy. As is often the case with dangerous but exciting incidents, the story of his platoon's dash through the hamlet of Hubert-Folie might have obscured the more significant and relevant lessons of skilfully sited defence against massed armour but for von Luck's detailed and engaging explanation of the latter.

The two former enemies became close friends and appeared together at military seminars until von Luck's death in 1997. In retirement Stileman returned to the house in Wimbledon where he was born. He became a sought-after lay preacher, as well as keeping up his military and sporting connections.

He is survived by his wife, Barbara, and three sons, one of  whom followed him into service with the Royal Green Jackets. His daughter predeceased him.

Brigadier David Stlleman, OBE,

Infantryman, was born on April9, 1924.

He died on June 24, 2011, aged 87

-- Edited by administrator on Wednesday 10th of August 2011 05:21:06 PM