Brigadier
Brigadier is a military rank, the seniority of which depends on the country. In some countries, it is a senior rank above colonel, equivalent to a brigadier general or commodore, typically commanding a brigade of several thousand soldiers. In ...
John Alan Lyde Caunter (17 December 1889 – 20 April 1981) was a senior
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
officer and a pioneer
shark angler off the British coast. He published an account of his escape from Germany as a
prisoner of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of wa ...
in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.
Military career
John Alan Lyde Caunter was born in
Banwell
Banwell is a village and civil parish on the River Banwell in the North Somerset district of Somerset, England. Its population was 2,919 according to the 2011 census.
History
Banwell Camp, east of the village, is a univallate hillfort which h ...
, Somerset to Richard Lawrence Caunter, a medical practitioner from
Liskeard
Liskeard ( ; kw, Lyskerrys) is a small ancient stannary and market town in south-east Cornwall, South West England. It is situated approximately 20 miles (32 km) west of Plymouth, west of the Devon border, and 12 miles (20 km) eas ...
, Cornwall and Johanna Wilhelmina Koerber of
Leith
Leith (; gd, Lìte) is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith. In 2021, it was ranked by '' Time Out'' as one of the top five neighbourhoods to live in the world.
The earliest ...
, Scotland. The family on the father's side were descended from the
Caunters of Ashburton, Devon, whose history was detailed by John's cousin Frederick Lyde Caunter. John's middle names go back to the Reverend John Alan Lyde, whose daughter Marian Lyde married the woollen manufacturer Richard Caunter in
Ashburton in 1826. Educated at
Uppingham School
Uppingham School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils 13-18) in Uppingham, Rutland, England, founded in 1584 by Robert Johnson (rector), Robert Johnson, the Archdeacon of Leicester, who also established Oa ...
and 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 infantry a ...
, John was commissioned into the
Gloucestershire Regiment
The Gloucestershire Regiment, commonly referred to as the Glosters, was a line infantry regiment of the British Army from 1881 until 1994. It traced its origins to Colonel Gibson's Regiment of Foot, which was raised in 1694 and later became the ...
in 1909.
John Caunter was captured by German forces in October 1914. He spent most of the war in German captivity before escaping from a camp at
Schwarmstedt
Schwarmstedt is a municipality in the Heidekreis in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated near the confluence of the rivers Aller and Leine, approx. 20 km south of Bad Fallingbostel, and 30 km east of Nienburg. Further districts of the ...
in summer 1917. He managed to cross into the neutral Netherlands and reached England still wearing his POW clothes. The following year he published ''13 Days: The Chronicle of an Escape from a German Prison''. While John was in captivity his younger brother Richard, a second lieutenant in the Gloucestershire Regiment, was killed in action in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
at the end of 1916.
Caunter went on to serve with the
British Salonika Army
The British Salonika Army was a field army of the British Army during World War I. After the armistice in November 1918, it was disbanded, but component units became the newly formed Army of the Black Sea, and General Milne remained in command.
Fi ...
in 1918.
[ On 13 February 1920 he married Helen Margaret Napier Napier in ]Churt
Churt is a village and civil parish in the borough of Waverley, Surrey, Waverley in Surrey, England, about south of the town of Farnham on the A287 road towards Hindhead. A nucleated village, clustered settlement is set in areas acting as its b ...
, Surrey, where both lived at the time. A daughter, Pamela Margaret Napier, was born in 1921 and a son, John Richard Lyde, in 1924, both in Farnham
Farnham ( /ˈfɑːnəm/) is a market town and civil parish in Surrey, England, around southwest of London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, close to the county border with Hampshire. The town is on the north branch of the River Wey, a trib ...
, Surrey. Caunter became commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, Royal Tank Corps in Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
in 1935 and became commander of 4th Armoured Brigade in the Western Desert campaign in January 1940, in which role he saw action at the Battle of Beda Fomm
The rapid British advance during Operation Compass (9 December 1940 – 9 February 1941) forced the Italian 10th Army to evacuate Cyrenaica, the eastern province of Libya. In late January, the British learned that the Italians were retreating a ...
in Libya in February 1941.[ He became Deputy Director of Staff Duties, Armoured Troops at ]GHQ India
GHQ may refer to:
* Garhwa railway station, in Jharkhand, India
* General Health Questionnaire
* General headquarters, or, specifically:
** General Headquarters (Pakistan Army)
** Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (General Headquarters in ...
in 1941 before retiring in 1944.[
His wife having died suddenly in ]New Delhi
New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...
in 1942, Caunter married Muriel Lilian Murphy, born Hicks, in Liskeard in 1945.
Shark angling
Caunter began fishing for sharks off the coast of Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
around 1945, and in 1953 founded the Shark Angling Club of Great Britain, serving as its first president. He was also a member for Great Britain of the International Committee of the International Game Fish Association
The International Game Fish Association (''IGFA'') is the leading authority on angling pursuits and the keeper of the most current World Record fishing catches by fish categories. Fishermen who are sport fishers are careful to follow their string ...
, and a member of the British Tunny Club. Caunter further sat on the Sea Fisheries Committee
In England and Wales, a Sea Fisheries Committee (SFC; also known in some cases as a Sea Fisheries District Committee), of which there were as many as twelve at one time, was the body responsible for managing a corresponding Sea Fisheries District. ...
and began the Looe Sea Angling Festival. His ''Shark Angling in Great Britain'' (1961) was the first book published in Britain to deal with sharks and shark fishing off the British coast. From 1952 to 1967 he served on the Looe Urban District Council.[ Brigadier Caunter died in ]East Looe
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
, Cornwall, in 1981.[England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995 for John Alan Lyde Caunter.]
Works
;Books
*
Digitised version of this book, with illustrations by the author
)
*
*
;Painting
*
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caunter, John Alan Lyde
1889 births
1981 deaths
Gloucestershire Regiment officers
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Recipients of the Military Cross
People educated at Uppingham School
Recreational fishing in the United Kingdom
British fishers
Military personnel from Somerset
British Army personnel of World War I
British Army brigadiers of World War II
Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst
British World War I prisoners of war
World War I prisoners of war held by Germany
Royal Tank Regiment officers