Walter Luttrell

Who was Walter Luttrell?

Colonel Sir Geoffrey Walter Fownes Luttrell KCVO MC JP was an English landowner in Somerset and a soldier who distinguished himself during the Second World War.

Luttrell was born in Melbourne, Australia, where his father was private secretary to the Governor-General of Australia, Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson. He grew up at Dunster Castle, his family's seat for six hundred years, then was educated at Eton and subsequently read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Exeter College, Oxford, where he acquired the friendly nickname of "Goat". He was an avid fox-hunter and polo player in his youth and later a salmon fisherman.

Luttrell enlisted as a trooper in 1939 on the outbreak of the Second World War and was subsequently commissioned into the 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars. In 1942 he married Hermione Hamilton Gunston, granddaughter of the 2nd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava; the couple had no children.

Luttrell landed with his regiment in Normandy two days after the first Normandy Landings and served as second-in-command of his squadron and as regimental gunnery officer during the Normandy campaign. In September 1944, a troop of his squadron was pinned down by German fire in difficult country at the bridgehead over the Meuse-Escaut canal, suffering two tanks disabled by broken tracks and the troop leader a casualty. Captain Luttrell successfully repaired the tanks under fire, extricated the troop, and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy.