David Martin died in Barbados at the early age of 57 on 26 April 1987 after a varied and interesting career with both the 8th Hussars and Grenadier Guards.
He was among the first of the ex-Sandhurst regular officers to join the Regiment after the War at Leicester in late 1949.
To the many National Service officers in the Regiment at that time he seemed a somewhat unlikely professional soldier owing to his eccentric manner and extraordinary laugh, but this only served to hide a person with a warm and friendly nature who became popular with his men and brother officers.
He sailed with the 8th to Korea in 1950 and throughout the first long and bitterly cold winter campaign served with distinction as a troop leader in ‘C’ Squadron. Later, in May 1951, he went on secondment to the US Air Force as an Air Observer in the bone-rattling T6 aircraft, with the hazardous task of identifying and marking ground-attack targets for the pilots in his affiliated Mosquito squadron.
During this period he located, with his equally ebullient American pilot, a large concentration of enemy vehicles and men moving North, and with courage and determination directed strike after strike to inflict great damage and casualties on them. For this action, he was awarded the US DFC and also the US Air Medal for Meritorious Conduct.
To his American colleagues, he appeared more British than the British; with his infectious laughter, enthusiasm and dedication he soon became a legend in the Group.
He moved with the Regiment to Luneburg early in 1952 and transferred to the Grenadier Guards in the autumn of 1953.
For the next fifteen years, he served with all its battalions at home and abroad including a spell as adjutant of the Honorable Artillery Company.
In 1968 he retired and went to live in Barbados where he built a house to his own design.
David was an amazing person. With a florid complexion and slight frame, he was nevertheless surprisingly strong; his press-ups with a cigar clenched in his teeth were remarkable demonstrations of his fitness.
He was a complex, quixotic character who more often than not appeared as the noisy extrovert; but underneath this facade was a sensitive, highly intelligent man with a penetrating insight into both people and situations. He had two particular qualities: indomitable courage, both physical and mental, which was never better demonstrated than in his uncomplaining fight against cancer; and he was generous to a fault.
Although he only served in the Regiment for a relatively short time it was a measure of how much he valued his friendships made as a young officer that he was a frequent and welcome visitor to the Cavalry Memorial Weekend where we always looked forward to seeing him again.
He was a notably generous supporter of the Regiment and will be sadly missed by his many friends.
