Edwin Hunt (waterman)

Edwin Hunt
MVO
Born (1920-03-20)20 March 1920
Service/branch British Army
Rank Major
Unit Royal Engineers
Battles/wars World War II
Awards
Other work Queen's Bargemaster

Edwin "Ted" Hunt MVO is a retired British waterman who served as a sapper waterman in World War II, and was in 1978 appointed as the Queen's Bargemaster.

Biography

Hunt was born on 23 March 1920 and was bound apprentice to his father as a waterman (lighterman)[1] in 1935 on the River Thames where he learned to tow Thames barges with a rowing-boat. At the time, Hunt recalled in 1993, there were 7000 barges on the river and hundreds of tugs.[2]

Following outbreak of the Second World War Hunt volunteered as a sapper waterman in the Royal Engineers, and served in the Battles of Narvik – part of the Norwegian campaign) – in April–May 1940. By 1944 he was commissioned, and as a captain commanded fifteen of the Rhino ferries on Gold Beach on D-Day. In four months, all sixty-four of these landing craft put ashore 93,000 units (tanks, guns and vehicles) and 440,000 tons of military stores. During the last six months of the war in Europe, together with the Dutch hydraulics engineer Lt. C. L. M. Lambrechtsen van Ritthem, he advised the Chief Engineer Second Army, Brigadier "Ginger" Campbell, on the "opposed crossing of water obstacles", so that the longest floating Bailey bridge of the Second World War could be constructed at Gennep in the Netherlands. This bridge over the river Maas (Meuse) was 4008 feet [1221 metres] long and was opened on 19 February 1945.

Demobilised as a major he returned to civilian life as a college lecturer in navigation and watermanship at the City & East London College in London, from 1948 until 1985. As a Royal Waterman, he was appointed Queen's Bargemaster in 1978 and retired from royal service as a Member of the Royal Victoria Order in 1990.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Salisbury, Harriet (2012). The War on our Doorstep: London's East End and how the Blitz Changed it Forever. Ebury Publishing. p. 467. ISBN 9781448117086. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  2. ↑ Leeman, Sue (24 October 1993). "Thames is rich in history". Lawrence Journal-World. p. 5D. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  3. ↑ "New Years Honours 1990". Retrieved 20 May 2013.

External links

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