Major Thomas Arthur Bird DSO, MC & Bar (11 August 1918 – 9 August 2017) was a distinguished British soldier and architect whose inspirational command of the anti-tank company (‘S’ Company) of 2nd Battalion, The Rifle Brigade, at Outpost Snipe during the Second Battle of El Alamein helped destroy the armoured counter-attack of General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps. ‘When all seemed to be lost, there would be Dicky boy, calm and seemingly aloof from the dangers around us…’.[1] The Daily Sketch described Snipe as ‘the finest action of the war’.[2] He later became a noted architect working in collaboration with Richard Tyler (as Bird & Tyler Associates) from 1955 to 1985[3] in the neo-classical genre, having rejected an earlier flirtation with modernism.
He remains the only soldier to have witnessed two Victoria Cross actions, that of Second Lieutenant George Ward Gunn of 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery (posthumously at Sidi Rezegh in 1941) and that of Colonel Victor Buller Turner, at Snipe.[4][5]
Tom Bird died at his home in Turville Heath on 9 August 2017, two days before his 99th birthday.[4]
- ^ Gregg, Victor (2011). Rifleman. Bloomsbury Paperbacks. ISBN 978-1408822081.
- ^ "The Daily Sketch". 31 December 1942. p. 1.
- ^ "Richard Tyler". The Daily Telegraph. 4 February 2009. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
- ^ a b "Major Thomas Bird obituary". The Sunday Times. 11 August 2017. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
- ^ "Bird, Edward Arthur". Winchester College at War. Retrieved 13 August 2017.