Died in South Australia on 9 March 1988.
Charlie started his Army career in April 1918 when he was enlisted and posted to 51st Training Battalion and later to the South Wales Borderers.
On conclusion of the Armistice, he transferred to the 12th Royal Lancers and served with them on the Curragh during the Troubles.
In March 1920 he joined a draft for the 5th Royal Irish Lancers and proceeded to the N W Frontier of India.
This regiment was disbanded a year later and he elected to continue his service with the 8th Hussars and joined the Regiment in Egypt in October 1921.
For 32 years Charlie was an 8th Hussar and no man did more for his Regiment.
He served under ten successive commanding officers and held the appointments of Orderly Room Sergeant Major, RQMS and RSM before being commissioned QM in the Field in June 1940.
Charlie’s exploits during the last war would fill an exciting and amusing book. The stories of his experiences of echelon running in the Western Desert, of his many narrow escapes from delivering rations to the wrong side and his own capture with the Regimental Rum, were famous in the Officers’ Mess after the Port had circulated.
Taken prisoner in May 1942 near Bir Hachim, Charlie was flown to Italy where he was forced to reside behind bars until the Italian Armistice in September 1943.
During the confusion that followed, the 8th Hussars in the Camp absconded. Major Comyn and Captain Astley Cooper were subsequently recaptured, but Charlie with Major Pat de Clermont, after a period of a year on the run behind the enemy lines, eventually got through a gap near Massa-Carrara.
They made contact with a US Negro Battalion who promptly threw them in prison as suspect enemy agents. Luckily both escaped the firing squad and returned to England in December 1944.
Charlie, as always, quite undaunted by his experiences, returned to the Regiment as QM in NW Europe in March 1945, where he had the satisfaction of seeing the final victories of the war and taking part in the Victory Parade in Berlin.
From December 1945 till he returned to the Regiment in Leicester in 1948, Charlie held the important appointments of Camp Commandant 1 Corps District and after that of Adjutant and QM of the Royal Glasgow Yeomanry.
In October 1950 Charlie took command of the advance party and flew to Korea where once again this ‘little man with the big smile’ got the best of everything for the Regiment. It is fair to say the rougher the times, the more cheerful he was.
After Korea Charlie’s main task and contribution to the Regiment had been his unstinted hard work in getting the Regiment properly settled in our good barracks in Luneburg. The general happiness of the Regiment proved the success of his hard work.
After his wife died, Charlie went to South Australia where his family had preceded him.
Charlie Hedley was really a unique man. Nobody served the Regiment more loyally or more effectively, and for his service, the War Office did him dirt in that they never made him a substantive Quartermaster, which position was hung on to by his predecessor, who had not served with the Regiment since 1940. As a result, in retirement, he only received a pension of a Warrant Officer Class 1.
The matter was taken up to the highest level but to no avail, but Charlie never showed any ill-feeling, and I am quite certain he must have felt it.
He will long be remembered by all who knew him with pride and affection and gratitude at having had the chance to serve with him.
