Christopher Hutchinson, 104, joined the cadets as a schoolboy before going on to serve for 46 years in the British Army, including as an officer in the Royal Tank Regiment during the Second World War. He fought in North Africa and Italy, where he was wounded and captured after a bazooka strike destroyed his Churchill tank, and spent eight months as a Prisoner of War before liberation in 1945.
Nine decades after first putting on a cadet uniform, Christopher has never forgotten the foundation cadets gave him. Now an ambassador for the Combined Cadet Force, he is leading National Cadets Week celebrations with a message to young cadets to take pride in who they are, make the most of every opportunity, and believe that the confidence, discipline and determination they are building now can carry them further than they ever imagined.
National Cadets Week (5-11 October) is a new annual celebration of cadet forces across the UK, recognising the positive impact they have on young people, schools and communities. The week will showcase the achievements of cadets and adult volunteers while highlighting the confidence, teamwork, resilience, leadership and sense of service developed through the cadet experience.
Long before he became a tank commander, a prisoner of war and, later, a Lieutenant Colonel with a family steeped in military service, Christopher Hutchinson was a schoolboy learning to shoot, lead and take responsibility. Those early lessons stayed with him.
He first developed his marksmanship at home and at Ardvreck preparatory school, where he won the Montgomery Bowl for outstanding shooting. At Charterhouse, he represented the school at Bisley, winning cups and even a pair of binoculars. They would later accompany him to North Africa and Italy, and are still used by his eldest son, a retired Brigadier.
In March 1940, not yet 18, Christopher asked his mother if he could join the Army. She refused, telling him he was too young. They struck a bargain, if he waited a year before joining up, he could leave Charterhouse immediately.
Within weeks, Anthony Eden’s broadcast calling for Local Defence Volunteers (later the Home Guard) gave him another route into service. Christopher cycled to the police station that night to put down his name. Soon afterwards, a family friend, Major Friday Holderness-Roddam, asked whether his cadet training might be put to immediate use.
Still a teenager, he was entrusted to put his cadet skills to use and form and train a local platoon of volunteers in the Northumberland countryside around Whittingham.
For a year he trained farm workers, foresters, postmen and engineers. When the year was up, he told his mother he wanted to join the Army properly. This time, she agreed. He enlisted in June 1941 as a Trooper in the Royal Tank Regiment, trained at Catterick, and was soon selected for officer training at Sandhurst.
By spring 1942, he had been commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. In March the following year, he landed in North Africa as a troop leader in A Squadron, 48th Royal Tank Regiment, with three Churchill tanks under his command.
He arrived as the campaign in North Africa was reaching its end, taking part in the final Allied push in Tunisia. He remembered the pride of serving in what he saw as one of the defining moments of the war, but it was the intimacy of life inside a tank crew that remained most vivid.
“You worked like brothers,” he said. Five men shared each Churchill tank: commander, wireless operator, gunner, driver and forward machine gunner. They worked together, slept beside the tank, ate together and learned quickly how each man would react under fire.
Christopher was frank about fear. Everyone, he said, was nervous before going into action for the first time.
After North Africa, he and his men spent months training and guarding stores while waiting to be sent into action again. There were dangerous and difficult moments even away from the front. On one occasion, Christopher was asked to defend a young trooper at a court martial after a fatal shooting at an ordnance depot. The man was acquitted.
In 1944, orders finally came to move to Italy. En route, during a convoy halt in Assisi, Christopher slipped away to visit the basilica. He recalled being led through a wooden doorway into a quiet garden filled with flowers, birds, bees and butterflies. He said a prayer and returned to his tank feeling, in his words, peacefully refreshed.
The stillness did not last. In September 1944, his squadron was ordered to advance at night towards Rimini, close to the German Gothic Line. Christopher’s tank led the column along a narrow mountain track. In the darkness, he saw infantry moving nearby and at first believed they were Canadians expected to join the attack. Then came the message from his squadron leader that they were Germans.
In the next moments, his tank was hit by a bazooka. The driver and forward gunner were killed outright. Smoke and flame filled the vehicle. Christopher, burned and hit by shrapnel, shouted for the crew to bail out.
He and his gunner, Gale, escaped through the hatch and dived into a ditch beside the track, only to land among German soldiers. “I suppose I was just glad to be alive,” he said.
Christopher still carries shrapnel in his body. He was taken first to a German aid post and then, after a grim journey by road, boat and cattle truck, to Stalag VII-A at Moosburg, near Munich. The camp, designed for around 20,000 prisoners, was becoming ever more crowded as Allied advances forced the Germans to move prisoners from elsewhere.
Food was scarce. At first, Red Cross parcels supplemented the meagre German rations of bread, potatoes and cabbage, but as the camp filled, parcels were shared between more men and then stopped altogether. “We were very hungry,”Christopher said simply.
There was little news from the outside world and almost no contact with home. Every two months he was allowed to write a brief lettercard to his mother. He never knew whether she received them. He received nothing in return. “We were cut off,” he said.
Liberation came on April 29, 1945, when American forces arrived at the camp. Christopher remembered German guards becoming restless as the distant sound of gunfire grew louder. Then three American Sherman tanks reached the entrance, followed by a scout car carrying General George Patton.
Within days, arrangements were made to fly the British prisoners to France and then home. On VE Day, Christopher was flown back to England in a Lancaster bomber. He was 23 years old and weighed seven stone.
The reception was efficient and overwhelming: de-lousing showers, new uniform, documents, a rail warrant, an advance of pay and a free telephone call. He did not know whether his mother was still alive. He telephoned the address of one of his sisters in Durham and, that night, was reunited with family. He later spoke to his mother. “A lovely end to my own VE Day,” he recalled.
After the war, Christopher continued his Army career, transferring from the Royal Tank Regiment to the Royal Army Pay Corps and serving in postings including Singapore, Hong Kong, Belgium and Italy. His final military appointment was with NATO in Italy, and he retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1987.
His life after the war was rich in service, family and memory. He married Jinny in June 1946 after meeting her at a party the previous year. They had 73 years together, five children, ten grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. With characteristic humour, Christopher has said some might accuse him of creating a private army: one son commanded an armoured engineer regiment in the Gulf War; another commanded the UK’s Air Defence Brigade; and his daughters married serving Army officers.
Yet for all the drama of his century, battle, capture, liberation, command, marriage and family, Christopher returns to the start, to the young cadet learning discipline, confidence and skill. Cadets, he believes, gave him a foundation on which much of his life was built.
As National Cadets Week begins, Christopher’s message to young cadets is hard-earned. “Be proud of who you are, take every opportunity seriously, look after one another and believe that you are capable of more than you realise.” His own life is proof of it.
National Cadets Week
National Cadets Week takes place from 5 to 11 October, the week offers schools a chance to showcase the experiences, skills and opportunities provided through the CCF. Find out more and download the National Cadets Week toolkit.
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