Bill Close

Major Bill Close joined the Royal Tank Regiment as a trooper in 1933 and was posted to the 3rd Battalion RTR in 1934 where he held every non-commissioned rank up to regimental quartermaster sergeant before being commissioned in the field in 1942. He served in France in 1940, in Greece in 1941, in North Africa in 1941-3, and in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany in 1944-5. After retiring from the army he was assistant bursar at Bryanston School and a manager at the electrical engineering firm Racal Redac. He married twice, had three sons and a daughter, and he died, aged 91, in 2006.