Colonel D’Arcy Mander DSO


D’Arcy John Desmond Mander was born at Youghal, County Cork on 11 Dec 1909, the son of an army officer. He was educated at Charterhouse and went on to Sandhurst. He was commissioned into the Green Howards in 1929. He served with them in WW2 in France, Belgium and North Africa where he was captured. He was flown to Italy and, being a talented linguist, used his time in captivity to learn Italian. In 1943 he escaped from a PoW train in northern Italy and with the help of brave local people managed to walk to Rome. It was here that he embarked on a dangerous career as a spy which resulted in providing vital information to the Allies, and earning him a DSO. 

Rome was under German occupation and infiltrated by the SS and their spies. Mander set up his own intelligence network and was able to eavesdrop on German conversations, being fluent in the German language. He established contact with a pro-Allied Italian network and was able to pass information to the British, most notably the date of the German counter-attack on the Anzio Bridgehead. With the help of a Hungarian agent he discovered an Italian double-agent, called Cipella, who had been released by the Gestapo. After interrogation Cipella admitted working for the SS and was persuaded to work for Mander. He provided a list of all the Nazi agents in Rome which was passed onto the Allies when Rome was liberated. During his time in Rome, Mander had been arrested twice by the SS and managed, by ingenious means, to escape. He later wrote a book; Mander’s March on Rome (1987).

His work in Rome finished, D’Arcy Mander was repatriated to Britain and sent to Staff College. He then served with the Allied Control Commission in Germany and then regimental service in India and the Sudan. He was on active service in Malaya where he commanded the 1st Battalion Green Howards from 1950 to 52 (mentioned in dispatches). He worked as Colonel GS (Int) at FARELF, was Brigade Colonel of the York and Durham Brigade from 1956-59 and then military attache in Vienna until 1963 when he retired. In retirement he invested in the stock market, cycled, played golf and designed a garden with pond and orchard at the age of 90. He was married in 1939 to Dorothy Eileen Nichols and they had two daughters. He died in 2000 at the age of 91. His obituary was published in the Daily Telegraph on 16 April 2001 with the above photo.


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by Stephen Luscombe