Lt Col Cliff Norbury died peacefully at Frimley Park Hospital, Surrey, on 25 July 2008, after a short illness. He was 88. Commissioned into the Essex Regiment at the close of 1940 he was posted to the 10th Battalion. In 1942 this unit was selected for conversion to the airborne infantry role, and re-formed as 9th Battalion The Parachute Regiment. For the rest of WW2, and until 1948, Cliff served with airborne units and formations with distinction and conspicuous gallantry. In 1946 he was granted a regular commission in the Essex Regiment.

Following the amalgamation of the Essex and the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiments in 1958, in June 1962 Cliff Norbury succeeded Michael Holme as CO 1st Battalion The 3rd East Anglian Regiment (16th/44th Foot), which he took to Ballykinlar in Northern Ireland and handed over to Peter Leng in Berlin in November 1964 as the 3rd (16th/44th Foot) Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment. During Cliff’s period of command, National Service ended and a new Regular Army emerged. It was to Cliff’s considerable credit that this fundamental change was accomplished smoothly and successfully.

Clifford Clarence Norbury, universally known as Cliff, was born on 9 November, 1919, at Chingford, Essex, on the edge of Epping Forest. The youngest in a family of four he spent a happy childhood there, attending the local school and discovering a love for horses. From the age of eight most of his pocket money went on hiring ponies to explore the Forest, invariably on his own, where he acquired a comprehensive knowledge of the ancient woods and commons. When he was ten years old he was sent to Ardingly College in Sussex. In the following year sadly he lost his mother.

During Cliff’s school years, and until war broke out in 1939, many holidays were spent with friends at their farm in North Devon, a place that he loved and which became a second home to him. He helped out as a farm hand, rode out over the moors and along the cliffs and, during the season, hunted with the Hartland Harriers. Cliff would recount that the values of hard work, faith and honesty that he observed among farming folk had been an important influence in his life.

On leaving school in 1936 it was Cliff’s ambition to travel overseas and he had already taken steps to apply for a cadetship in the Indian Police, a career that held the prospect of a life on horseback. Family pressure intervened however, and instead he was offered the opportunity to join the NAAFI as a management trainee with the promise of an overseas posting. After training, his first appointment took him to the East – albeit a location close to the eastern extremity of Epping Forest, namely RAF North Weald. An enthusiastic athlete at Ardingly, Cliff now ran the quarter mile for the NAAFI, for Woodford Green Athletic Club and Essex County. He also took up rugby – Ardingly was a soccer school – becoming a speedy wing three quarter.

Cliff joined the Army on January 17, 1940, enlisting as a Rifleman (Army Class recruit) in the 1st Queen’s Westminster Rifles, a London-based TA battalion of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Much of that first year of war was spent with his unit on coastal defence duties in Kent, driving a Captain Mitford around in a bren gun carrier. In the autumn of 1940 Cliff was selected for officer training and posted to No 164 OCTU at Colchester. A fortnight later, in the dead of night, the officer cadets were marched to Colchester railway station, where they boarded a train and, when dawn broke, found themselves by the sea at Barmouth in North Wales. The three months training was tough but Cliff was delighted to exchange a hard barrack room bed in Colchester for a feather mattress in a boarding house on the sea front.

Cliff was commissioned into the Regiment on 28 December, 1940 and reported to Warley in the New Year. Soon he was posted as a platoon commander to the 10th Battalion at Dovercourt, building and manning the defences of the port of Harwich. Harwich was a focal point in the defence of the country, and its garrison naturally received its fair share of attention. During this period of threat from invasion, Cliff recalled visits by the Brigade Commander, the Corps Commander, the Army Commander and the Prime Minister – each of whom had his own view on how the defensive deployment of his platoon might be improved.

In August 1942, after further deployments on coastal and airfield defence in Essex and Suffolk, the 10th Essex moved to St Albans. They received a visit there from the Commander 6th Airborne Division, Maj Gen ‘Boy’ Browning who, in an address to all ranks, announced that they were to become a parachute unit and called for volunteers. Out of a Battalion strength of 644 all ranks, 567 did so, but the vicissitudes of parachute training reduced this number. Thus on December 10, 1942, 10th Essex became 9th Para and Cliff was transferred to the Army Air Corps.

Appointed Staff Captain ‘Q’, HQ 6 Airborne Division, in July 1943, Cliff took part in the ‘D-Day’ airborne assault landing in Normandy the following June. The next month he was appointed DAQMG in the same HQ in the rank of temporary major. He took part in all his Division’s further adventures in North West Europe, notably in the Ardennes, Holland and the Crossing of the Rhine. The latter, mounted from UK and much of it from Gosfield, Essex, was a conspicuous success. For his part in earlier operations Cliff was mentioned in despatches [London Gazette: 10.5.45] and for Operation ‘Varsity’ he was later awarded the Military Cross [London Gazette: 22.7.45]. The citation was signed by Maj Gen Edwin Bols, DSO, GOC 6 Airborne Division, recommending the ‘Distinguished Service Order (Immediate)’. This was subsequently altered to the Military Cross by Commander, Second Army, and approved by Field Marshal Montgomery. By any standard it was an outstanding achievement, and at the age of 25.

When the European war ended, the Division was earmarked for India and Cliff was sent out to prepare for its arrival. But atomic bombs were dropped, the Japanese war ended and the Division diverted to Palestine. Cliff rejoined Div HQ there at the end of 1945, but early in 1946 he rejoined 9th Para to command a rifle company. In 1947 he was sent home to raise a TA parachute battalion, 14th Para, based in Southampton. When Cliff left for the 1948 Course at the Staff College, Camberley, 14th Para was the best-recruited battalion in the TA Airborne Division. After Staff College, Cliff spent two years at HQ Southern Command as GSO2 Training, for which he was to be awarded the MBE [London Gazette: 7.7.51].

In March 1951 Cliff discarded his maroon beret and dressed himself again as an officer of the Essex Regiment on joining the 1st Battalion at Colchester as a rifle company commander under Lt Col TLG (Tommy) Charles DSO. First at Minden and then at Luneberg, Cliff recalled the long and exhausting exercises across the North German plain, some fairly wild social activity and many Battalion sporting successes. The 1952 season proved to be a very successful one for the Battalion athletic team under Cliff’s leadership as OIC Athletics. After victories in the Divisional Individual Championships the team trained in earnest and, in quick succession, came first at both the Brigade and Divisional Championships. In the BAOR Championships they achieved a highly creditable fourth place.

In the summer of 1953, the 1st Battalion returned to Warley Barracks, took part in the Coronation Parade and embarked for active service in Korea under the command of Lt Col Paul Clementi Smith. After a six week voyage they disembarked at Pusan on the day the Armistice, ending the Korean War, was signed. A year of exercises, sport and the construction of a new defensive line, the ‘Kansas Line’ ensued. Cliff was given the additional task of running the PRI (unit welfare and funds facility to the uninitiated) in the form of a shop. With his NAAFI experience and the help of a local Japanese trader, he developed the shop to the extent that both the Commonwealth Division and the US Marine Division used it too. It was a venture that left Regimental funds in a much healthier state.

In July 1954 Cliff was posted to Seremban in Malaya, as Brigade Major of 26 Gurkha Infantry Brigade, then committed to anti-terrorist operations in the jungle during the so-called ‘Emergency’ (1948-60). For distinguished services he was again mentioned in despatches. [London Gazette: 30.10.56].

Cliff was an exchange instructor at the Royal Canadian School of Infantry in Ontario (1956-58) He then attended the Joint Services Staff College course at Latimer, Bucks. In 1959 he joined 1st/3rd East Anglian at Warley as a rifle company commander and led the training advance party to Malaya. In 1960 he took ‘A’ Company from Ipoh to Malacca, to open up the Battalion’s next barracks in the new Commonwealth Brigade cantonment at Bukit Terendak. In January 1961 he returned to the UK to a staff job at the MOD until he took over command from Lt Col Michael Holme OBE MC in June 1962. After command he held two staff appointments: GSO1 Training/Air, HQ Far East Land Forces & Defence Adviser to the British High Commissioner, Singapore (1965-67), and AA & QMG, HQ Aldershot Garrison (1967-69), before retiring from the Army at 50.

Cliff quickly settled into civilian life, joining Powell Duffryn Chemical Oil and Storage Company Ltd as London Manager and Company Secretary, for 12 years, and then Director of the Surrey Branch of the British Red Cross for 5 years. In retirement he stayed at Camberley, close to family and friends, with a busy social round of bridge, golf, parties and regimental occasions. On the 60th Anniversary of D-Day, in 2004, the French Government appointed Cliff as a Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur .

Cliff met his wife Eileen (Ellen) McCormick in 1941, at a dance in Hornchurch, where he was defending the RAF airfield. They married at Romford on 6 June, 1942, and had two children, David and Mary. To this day a loyal supporter of The Regiment, David served with the Pompadours in the 1960s and 70s.

Eileen Norbury was a devoted wife and mother and her death in 1976 at the age of 58 was a great blow to Cliff and his family, and to many friends in the Regiment. Cliff was remarkably efficient in remembering the birthdays of his children, his grandchildren and his great grandchildren, all of whom adored this kindly man.

JEH/DMN