Lieutenant-Colonel Derrick Hignett

Lieut-Col Hignett is seen here inspecting troops with the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and several high-ranking officers. A copy of this historic photograph has been obtained for the Branch from the Royal Hussars Museum in Winchester.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the death, at the age of 93, of Lieut-Col Hignett.  It is also sixty-one years since the disastrous raid on the French coast at Dieppe in August 1942.  Following his leadership of a successful undercover operation in Dieppe some two months earlier, Lieut-Col Hignett foresaw, and warned about, the problems that were to seriously blight the raid.  Unfortunately, his advice was not heeded and the ill-conceived operation went ahead with the result that over 4,000 lives, mostly Canadian, were lost out of a force of around 6,000 men. 

The undercover operation led by Lieut-Col Hignett was planned and undertaken in the utmost secrecy by an elite group of multi-skilled commandos known as the Phantom Force. The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, explained to Lieut-Col Hignett and his team that, in order to preserve the secrecy, no decorations would be awarded.  Their task, to be achieved in a three-day operation, was to gather details of the German military installations in the area.  The successful mission included the capture of radar equipment, daringly stolen from under the noses of the German troops. 

It was characteristic of Lieut-Col Hignett that he did not leave the scene of the operation until all his men were on their way to the ship waiting to take them back to Britain.  By a truly amazing coincidence his passage home was aboard a Hunt class destroyer named ‘Fernie’! 

Born in Staffordshire, Lieut-Col Hignett was educated at Rugby and Sandhurst.  He served in Egypt and India after being commissioned in the 10th Hussars in 1920, and, during the thirties, was seconded as adjutant to the Leicestershire Yeomanry.  Promotion to the rank of lieutenant-colonel came in 1940. 

His sporting interests were many and varied.  He was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, and joint master of the Fernie Hunt, with Sir Harold Wernher from 1935-37, and after the war with Colonel ‘Pen’ Lloyd.  He was renowned as a fishing and stalking expert on his Scottish estate, and a supporter of local cricket.  A motorist since 1917, he was keenly interested in old cars and owned a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. 

Lieut-Col Hignett, whose wife Alys Gwendoline died in 1966, was a well-known, and much-loved, figure in and around Market Harborough.  He was prominent in Leicestershire public affairs, as a JP, deputy lieutenant and then, in 1951/52, as High Sheriff.  During the 1980s and early 1990s, he was a popular President of the RBL Market Harborough Branch. 

In the next issue of In Touch, it is hoped to include some memories of Lieut-Col Hignett as a soldier, sportsman, local citizen and, of course, member of the Royal British Legion.

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