(John) Drummond Allison (1921 – 2 December 1943) was an English

war poet A war poet is a poet who participates in a war and writes about their experiences, or a non-combatant who writes poems about war. While the term is applied especially to those who served during the First World War, the term can be applied to a p ...

of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. He was born in

Caterham Caterham () is a town in the Tandridge District of Surrey, England. The town is administratively divided into two: Caterham on the Hill, and Caterham Valley, which includes the main town centre in the middle of a dry valley but rises to equal ...

, Surrey, and educated at

Bishop's Stortford College Bishop's Stortford College is a independent day and boarding school in the English public school tradition for more than 1,200 pupils aged 4–18, situated in a campus on the edge of the market town of Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, Englan ...

and at

Queen's College, Oxford The Queen's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault. It is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassical architecture, ...

. After training at the

Royal Military College, Sandhurst The Royal Military College (RMC), founded in 1801 and established in 1802 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire, was a British Army military academy for training infant ...

, he became an intelligence officer in the East Surrey Regiment. He served in North Africa and Italy, where he was killed in action fighting on the

Garigliano The Garigliano () is a river in central Italy. It forms at the confluence of the rivers Gari (also known as the Rapido) and Liri. Garigliano is actually a deformation of "Gari-Lirano" (which in Italian means something like "Gari from the Liri") ...

. Lieutenant Allison is buried in the Minturno War Cemetery.CWGC casualty details
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Works

*''The Yellow Night: Poems 1940-41-42-43'' (1944) *''The Poems of Drummond Allison'' (1978) edited by Michael Sharp *''The Collected Poems of Drummond Allison'' (1993) edited by Stephen Benson

Notes

References

* Drummond Allison: Come, Let Us Pity Death, by Ross Davies (London:Cecil Woolf Publishers) . {{DEFAULTSORT:Allison, Drummond 1921 births 1943 deaths Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford East Surrey Regiment officers British Army personnel killed in World War II Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst People educated at Bishop's Stortford College People from Caterham 20th-century English poets Military personnel from Surrey English male poets