Hero brothers in arms

Both were born in Hampshire, one in Bournemouth (in Dorset since local government reorganisation in 1974), where their father was curate at St Peter's Church. Yet Derek and Hugh Seagrim have remained unsung heroes here, until now. KEVIN NASH reports...

WHEN Keith Rawlings' term as mayor came to an end, he decided to leave the grateful Bournemouth townspeople a gift. But the specially-commissioned statue, by Corfe Castle sculptor Jonathan Sales, he unveiled outside the Bournemouth International Centre three years ago wasn't to everyone's taste.

In fact, there was a bit of a kerfuffle over the depiction of C C Creeke, "first town surveyor and inspector of nuisances", sitting on a toilet. Amid the fuss no one really seemed to notice the names of the three Bournemouth-born soldiers awarded the Victoria Cross carved on a scroll held by Captain Lewis Tregonwell, the town's founder.

There, alongside Sgt F C Riggs and Corporal C R Noble, is etched Lt-Col D A Seagrim.

It's the only acknowledgment, anywhere in the town, of a local hero whose courage would have seemed far-fetched, even in a Boy's Own adventure...

Derek Anthony Seagrim was born in 1903 at 14 Charminster Road, the third of five sons of Charles Paulet Cunningham Seagrim and his wife Annabel.

Reverend Seagrim, a former missionary in Basutoland and Cape Colony, was an able and very popular senior priest under a man called Fisher, and took on an increasing workload as the vicar, who suffered from ill health, travelled increasingly to Italy, building up hefty debts in the process.

The Seagrim family was steeped in military history - Charles's father fought in the Crimea and spent many years in India, while three of his brothers went into the army. His two eldest sons, Charles and Cyril, went into the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers respectively.

Derek, or "Bunny" to family and friends, was commissioned into the Green Howards in 1923, after failing his Sandhurst entrance exam (although he got in when someone else dropped out) and served in Jamaica, Palestine and China.

At the outbreak of the Second World War he was an air liaison officer in East Africa, later working on the staff for the Greek Campaign between 1941-2 before taking command of the 7th Battalion with Monty's Desert Rats at El Alamein in North Africa.

At first his men were unsure what to make of him. After all, they thought, until then he'd mainly worked behind a desk.

They probably didn't know too much about his work as an intelligence officer in Jerusalem. But within four months he'd shown his mettle in battle.

His men were to attack the Germans at the strongest point of the Mareth Line in Tunisia. As they approached the start line - 500 yards from an anti-tank ditch, 9ft wide and 9ft deep - the night sky was lit up by exploding shells and tracer bullets.

The element of surprise had gone but the advance continued, nevertheless. Enemy gunfire was targeted on the tank ditch and the noise was deafening.

A captain recalled Seagrim "just strolling around as if he was on the parade ground".

As his men clambered up ladders on the other side of the ditch, they were met by a hail of machine-gun fire and the attack ground to a halt.

Lt-Col Seagrim charged ahead and wiped out the machine-gunners with his revolver and grenades.

His men followed and saw him tackle a second machine-gun post, personally killing or capturing about 20 Germans. His leadership led directly to the capture of the bastion.

Throughout the night, Seagrim moved from post to post, directing fire against a wave of German counter-attacks. His orders had been to hold on at all costs... and he was determined to follow them.

Throughout the following day the battalion stood firm. It was a vital victory.

Two months later the London Gazette announced the award of the Victoria Cross to Lt-Col Seagrim, but he did not live to read the citation - 15 days after Mareth he died of wounds sustained in the Battle of Wadi Akarit.

*****

Hugh Seagrim, the youngest brother, was born in 1909 in Ashmansworth, near the River Hamble, not far from Southampton, but was less than a year old when his father became rector of Whissonsett-with-Hortingtoft, two small adjoining villages about 20 miles from Norwich. (Reverend Seagrim remained in Norfolk until his death, in 1927.)

Hugh, whose family nickname was Bumps, played in the local cricket team with his brothers, went sailing on the Broads, rode ponies and shot pheasants.

He was tall, dark, "rather cadaverous" and wanted to be a doctor... but then his father died and there wasn't enough money to send him to university.

It was felt four sons in the Army was quite enough for one family but the Royal Navy turned him down because he was colour blind.

So he too went to Sandhurst, joined the Indian Army and went climbing in the Himalayas.

After a year he was posted to the 1st/20th Burma Rifles and used three months' leave to travel through Japan.

He liked and admired the Japanese - he was also fond of Burma and its people.

He passed his examination in spoken Burmese in just five weeks, a remarkable achievement.

He travelled extensively through the countryside, usually with between six and a dozen Karen tribesmen from his company. He felt it was important for an officer to "know the men he commanded."

In Rangoon he was famous as the goalkeeper in the regimental football team and even played for the All-Burma side that beat the Islington Corinthian tourists in 1937. As the only European, he was named captain, but insisted the Karen centre-half should have the honour instead.

He wasn't particularly sociable, refused to mix with the polo set and didn't drink much but, according to a fellow officer, was easily the best-liked man in the mess: "One of the most amusing talkers I've ever known... to listen to him for five minutes was a tonic."

Seagrim enjoyed driving fast in his three-litre Bentley and later, on his motorbikes, Nortons and Ariel Square-Fours, powerful machines with Austin Seven engines.

He loved music, read voraciously and, as a frequent sufferer of dysentry, experimented with novel diets, once existing for 25 days on just water, fruit juices and milk.

He used to say the Karen were God's chosen people and for a time he went out with a Eurasian girl, partly because he disliked the Rangoon attitude which considered it "not done".

The general feeling among Seagrim's fellow officers seems to have been that he was eccentric, clever, delightful, occasionally odd.

Maybe even the man himself, who often said he would rather be a postman in Norfolk than a general in India, didn't realise the immense courage within...

Between February 1943 and February 1944, Seagrim led a group of Karen guerillas in the hills.

The Japanese, desperate to end their resistance, arrested and tortured civilians in a vain campaign to find them.

Finally, the Japanese caught up with the group. Two other British officers were ambushed and killed, but Seagrim, a Karen officer and several of the men escaped.

The Japanese rounded up 270 more Karen, and tortured and killed many of them.

So, on March 15, 1944, Seagrim gave himself up to spare the local tribespeople any further suffering.

He was taken to Rangoon and, along with eight Karen, sentenced to death.

He had a chance to escape the firing squad but refused to beg for mercy. Instead he told his captors only he should die, because he was the leader... yet the Karen insisted they wanted to die with him.

So, on December 14, Major Seagrim was executed, along with his men. He was buried at Rangoon war cemetery.

*****

In the village of Whissonsett, where Bumps and Bunny grew up with their parents and three brothers, who all returned safely from the war, there is a Saxon-style cross in their memory, erected on the village green and unveiled in June 1985.

In Bournemouth, where Derek Seagrim was born, there are a few words engraved on a statue. But Keith Rawlings hasn't forgotten. He wants a road in Bournemouth to be named after the brothers as a permanent reminder of not one, but two stories of supreme sacrifice.