D R B Kaye DSO

Douglas Robert Beaumont Kaye was born on 18 Nov 1909. He was educated at Harrow and commissioned into the Leicestershire Yeomanry in 1928. At the age of 20 he went out to India to stay with one of his three brothers, all officers in the 10th Hussars. He was told of a man-eating tiger that had killed 7 Indians so he set off with a goat which he tied up near a tree. He waited in the branches for 3 nights before finally killing the beast. He transferred to a regular commission with the 10th Hussars in 1931. The regiment had been posted to Meerut in 1930 and Kaye entered into the sporting activities such as polo, pig-sticking, shooting and jackal hunting. He formed the Lucknow Hunt with hounds that his father, Master of the Woodland Pytchley, had drafted out to India.
He returned to England in 1938 to train in military police work and was than posted as Officer Commanding Palestine Provost Company in Jerusalem. After two years he was posted in a similar job in Cairo. The 10th Hussars arrived in Egypt in November 1941 and Kaye asked to return to them. He was appointed command of C Squadron even though he had never been in a tank or used a wireless. He was wounded in the first battle of El Alamein in May 1942, but it was in the 23 October - 4 November battle of El Alamein that he won the DSO. In this he was in command of A Squadron which had moved forward in the night to find that, as day dawned, they were in an enemy minefield and faced by German tanks and guns. In the ensuing battle Kaye’s tanks destroyed 60 tanks, 30 anti-tank guns and 12 lorries, for the loss of only one British tank. He managed to get his squadron forward and through the minefield, to beat off another attack on a British infantry battalion.
After Alamein he served in the North African campaign in Tunisia and then supervised training for the landing in Italy in May 1944. He commanded the 10th Hussars through the Italian battles of Coriano Ridge, Santarcangelo, Cesena, Faenza and the Argenta Gap. He won a bar to his DSO in 1945. At the Cinzano factory he used a water cart to capture the drink which was pouring out of a shell-hole in one of the vats. He collected 250 gallons which was gratefully drunk by his regiment until the end of the war. However, he was reprimanded by the brigade commander for his misuse of a water cart, but he and many of the hussars developed a lifelong taste for Cinzano.
He married Audrey Bellville in 1946 and they had a son (also a 10th Hussar) and a daughter. After the war he commanded the 16th/5th Lancers, and from 1954 to 56 was Colonel Commandant of the gunnery school, RAC centre. In 1956 he retired from the army and was able to indulge his lifelong passion for fox-hunting. He was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely in 1971 and served as chairman of the Newmarket District Council.
He was a big man with a strong sense of discipline and high standards. He could dominate a gathering and had a very good sense of humour. He was popular with both soldiers and civilians and got on well with young people. As well as hunting he was good swimmer, having captained the regimental team of the 10th Hussars. He died in February 1996 at the age of 86. The photo and information comes from the Daily Telegraph obituaries 4 Mar 1996.

Regimental Details | Commanding Officers