Rodney Wilkinson; painter & war hero
Hyfler/Rosner
(Filed: 10/09/2004)
Rodney Wilkinson, who has died aged 80, won an MC in Italy
in 1945, and was later a painter and art teacher at the Glen
Byam School.
In the last days of the Italy campaign, the Allied armies
were racing to cut off the Germans before they withdrew
behind their Alpine barrier. The 27th Lancers had crossed
the Po and were leading 6th Armoured Division's pursuit of
the enemy towards Austria.
On May 1, Wilkinson, then a lieutenant in B Squadron, was in
command of a troop of armoured cars, close to the town of
Maniago, which was held by 1,000 enemy troops equipped with
seven self-propelled guns. Although 12 miles from the rest
of his squadron, he delivered an ultimatum to the German
commander, exaggerating his own strength and threatening an
immediate air attack. The ruse succeeded, and Wilkinson
personally supervised the disarming of the force before
escorting it 15 miles to a holding area. The citation for
his MC stated that his leadership and disregard of personal
danger over many months had been a magnificent example to
his men.
Rodney Norman Wilkinson was born on March 9 1924 at St
John's Wood, London. His father, Norman, was a well-known
landscape artist who drew the LMS railway posters which
adorned pre-war stations and who invented "dazzle" paint to
protect merchant ships from U-boats in the Great War.
Young Rodney was educated at Stowe, then Sandhurst, before
being commissioned into the 27th Lancers, and was sent to
Egypt in 1943. After a spell in Cyrenaica, Palestine and
Syria, 27 L landed in Italy in July 1944 and took over from
two squadrons of the 12th Royal Lancers, from which it was
formed, in the Upper Tiber valley. There was a friendly
rivalry between the two regiments; 12 RL, which had been
formed, dubbed the new arrivals the "Desert Mice".
The terrain consisted of barren ridges divided by deep
valleys where it was impossible to make much use of the
armoured cars and most of the patrolling was carried out in
jeeps or on foot. In September, at Pian di Meleto, near
Pesaro, Wilkinson dispersed a patrol of 10 Germans
single-handed, killing two with his revolver and bringing
back two prisoners.
As the Germans fell back, 27 L followed; but the mountains
west of Urbino became almost impassable for wheeled
transport. Oxen had to be employed to pull the massive
Staghound armoured cars out of the mud, and the regiment
became largely dependent on mules.
On one occasion, Wilkinson had made up a bridge four with
members of his troop in a farmhouse near Gubbio when a
German patrol of 12 soldiers arrived. Both parties were
taken by surprise. Wilkinson and his comrades took cover in
a ditch over which the Germans had to jump to get away. He
fired off all six chambers of his revolver as they leaped
over him but only succeeded in hitting a straggler in the
backside which, if anything, only expedited the man's
departure.
In December, elements of 27 L were among the first into
Ravenna. Bottles of wine appeared, the women came out of
their houses with cakes and the children ran up with gifts
of fruit.
At the officers' club, Wilkinson was one of four cavalry
officers who let off a smoke discharger from a destroyer
which resulted in more than 30 people being removed on
stretchers, though none was permanently injured. The
perpetrators were fined a year's pay - but the ringleader,
to their great relief, settled the bill for all the other
participants.
In April 1945, Wilkinson took part in the battle of
Commachio where he commanded a troop of fantails - tracked
amphibian vehicles - carrying sappers and explosives. After
the crossing of the Po, 27 L were heading for Treviso when
Colonel-General Graf Von Schwerin, commanding 76 Panzer
Corps, came down the road in a Mercedes staff car carrying a
white flag and surrendered to Wilkinson; the commanding
officer of 27 L asked to be allowed to use the Mercedes, a
much more exciting car than his Humber, but the corps
commander kept it for himself. Wilkinson was mentioned in
dispatches.
B Squadron met stiff resistance at Conegliano, where it
fought an eight-hour battle before the 1,500-strong garrison
surrendered. On May 2, the squadron found seven German tanks
and 400 infantry holding the entrance to a pass near Gemona.
Wilkinson, after his successful stratagem at Maniago,
decided to try to bluff them into surrendering and
dispatched an Italian priest with a white flag to inform the
commander that he was surrounded by 20 tanks and a brigade
of infantry.
The Germans called Wilkinson's bluff and, next day, they
attacked Gemona. Armoured cars and half-tracks were no match
for the Panthers and Panzer IV tanks but B Squadron,
reinforced by part of C Squadron, held off the assault until
further reinforcements arrived.
Shortly after the end of the war, Wilkinson had a lucky
escape when the brakes failed on a Churchill tank which
rolled down a hill and over the tent in which he was
sleeping. It did not seem possible that he could survive and
there was a rumour that he had levitated himself and shot
horizontally out of the flap. Unsurprisingly, he was
somewhat shaken by the experience.
In August 1945, 27 L was disbanded. Wilkinson transferred to
the 7th (QO) Hussars, and was demobilised two years later.
He became a student at the Byam Shaw Art School until 1952
when he embarked on a career as a portrait painter. His
commissions included Princess Mary, the Queen's aunt, the
Bishop of Ipswich and the Dean of Westminster. There was
also one of his own father, with whom he often found himself
exhibiting in the Royal Academy summer shows, as well as his
own wife.
In 1956, he returned to the Byam Shaw Art School and for the
next 20 years he taught drawing and painting. Maurice de
Saumarez, principal of the Byam Shaw school, was influential
in his decision to abandon portraiture and focus on abstract
landscape and cityscape painting.
Wilkinson was fascinated by the cityscape of Bristol,
particularly the docks, where he executed a number of major
works, which demonstrated his fascination with the geometry
of the picture plane, much inspired by the work of Cezanne.
Wilkinson was an accomplished snooker player. He later moved
to Dorset, where he concentrated on landscape painting.
He was perhaps a better painter than his father but a less
astute businessman. Settled in his motoring habits, he drove
a 1937 Lancia Aprilia for the rest of his life. He was a
first-class fisherman and a proficient golfer.
Rodney Wilkinson died on August 13. He married, in 1954,
Angelina Pawle, daughter of the stained glass artist Hugh
Pawle; the marriage was dissolved in 1982. Their son and two
daughters survive him.