| Details | | Ian Doyle, established battlefield guide and known presenter to the History Group as well as the Military History Group will deliver a talk on one of Britain's greatest film stars.
Dirk Bogarde was a well known actor prominent in the post-War British film industry, most active in the late 1940s, 50s and 60s when he appeared in 60 of his 72 credited film and TV performances.
Prior to his first credited role in the TV movie "Rope" released in 1947, he served in the British Army for 5 years during World War 2 until he was demobilised in 1946.
Off stage, Dirk Bogarde was a very private individual. He rarely spoke in detail about his military career and indeed, he burned most of his personal private records; his diaries and his journals following the death of his much loved partner in France in the 1990s. He himself passed away in 1999. Within the terms of his will where he left his not insignificant wealth to his niece and nephew; was a "gagging clause". They would be disinherited should they ever reveal what they knew of their uncle after his death.
His publicity machine states that he began his military career in 1943 with a commission into the Queen's Royal (West Surrey) Regiment serving in both the European and Pacific theatres as an intelligence officer. In Europe he was engaged in interrogating captured German soldiers and gathering information useful for the advancing British forces. In this role, he was one of the first British officers present during the liberation of the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp which left him with a deep-seated hostility towards Germany and the German people.
Extrapolating from the very few documents on public record, combined with the novels he wrote whilst living in retirement in France in the 1980s which are clearly based on his personal experience, I hope to present a more detailed biography of Captain Derek Van Den Bogaerde and the very difficult circumstances in which he found himself whilst serving with AFNEI (Allied Forces Netherlands East Indies).
“He served ... in the Pacific theatre!” |
