Major Peter John deAppleby Moore was born on December 16 1921 at Much Wenlock, Shropshire and educated at Oundle School. He was an accomplished sportsman, and had war not intervened, would have immediately pursued his determination to farm. However, he was conscripted into the Royal Artillery in 1940, and then was commissioned into the Leicestershire Regiment. His father Aubrey had served with distinction in the 1/5th Battalion during the First World War, also winning a Military Cross.

Peter was posted to the 2/5th Battalion before it was sent to North Africa which was where he landed in January 1943, and fought through the fierce desert campaign of that year, eventually forming part of the invasion fleet that set sail from Bizerta in Tunisia, to Palermo and on to the Salerno landings. For three days and nights he and his comrades took up a position in slit trenches in vineyards some distance behind the German lines. The Germans thought they must be paratroops and, instead of attacking, were content to keep them pinned down by mortar and machine-gun fire. By the third night, however, with ammunition running low, short of food and with the wounded needing treatment, they crept back through the enemy lines and rejoined the Battalion. Moore was hit in the leg by shrapnel and had an emergency operation in a hospital ship offshore.

On 30 August 1944, the Battalion was near San Giórgio, west of Pésaro, near the formidable Gothic Line, which was created by the German army to hold back the Allied advance. Moore was required to lead his platoon across the River Foglia. His orders were to clear a pass through a minefield in front of German positions, seizing enemy occupied ground at the top of a very precipitous area of high ground called Mondaino.

After finding and marking a route with the use of mine detectors, Moore went forward with his first section, sending a runner back for the other two, when suddenly a party of 15 Germans came down the hill. He threw a grenade, later recalling startled Germans, but no explosion, he rushed at the Germans anyway, shouting and firing his Tommy Gun. The first burst killed two, but then the gun jammed permanently. Undeterred by the loss of his weapon Moore continued the assault, leading his troops to scatter an enemy that outnumbered them and was better armed, to reach the top of the hill. The citation commended Moore for acting “with great dash and without any consideration for his own safety, firing his weapon and encouraging his tired men.” He was awarded an Immediate MC. The rest of the Battalion was involved in fierce fighting all night and the capture of Mondaino by the Battalion was described by the GOC as a magnificent feat of arms and a “classic example of infantry infiltration tactics”.

A self-effacing and modest man, Moore fought his way through North Africa, Italy and Greece, relaxing when possible with volumes by Siegfried Sassoon and copies of Farmers Weekly sent out by his mother, reflecting his relish for both the practical and poetic. In return, she received letters signed-off with the phrase ‘No need to worry’, later the title of his wartime memoirs.

One of his soldiers states that “I can never forget the brilliance of Major Moore. His first concern was the safety of his company. He did that right through Italy, including breaking the Gothic Line. The major risks he took himself in these battles. There could not have been a better Company Commander. We worshipped him.”

After the war, he went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge, to read Agricultural Science. He immersed himself in sports and was a Rugby blue, playing prop forward for the University. He later farmed on what is now the Donington Park Race Circuit, which was built by his maternal grandfather, until his back forced him to retire.

Moore was chairman of the Trustees of the Grade One listed Sir John Moore School in Appleby Magna, Leicestershire, which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and built by an ancestor whose other great endowment was Christ’s Hospital, now in Horsham. He held the post for 50 years, continuing an unbroken line of family trustees since the school was founded, guiding what he fondly described as the grandest village school in the country from mild dereliction to thorough refurbishment and at the heart of village life. He was also for many years a Tax Commissioner and on the regional committee of the National Trust. No Need to Worry, his wartime memoirs, was published in 2000.

He met his Australian-born wife Cynthia Mason on a train bound for the Austrian ski slopes in 1957. They were engaged within three weeks and married for 56 years. She survives him, as do their three sons.