Lieutenant-Colonel Terence Otway
9th Parachute Battalion

The more I think about it the more I wonder how in the devil we did it … It was this fantastic training that saved us. I can’t believe we could have pulled it off otherwise … It was an appalling shambles and only Good knew what lay in store for us. I asked myself, do I pack up or do I go on? It had been stressed to me how vital it was to see the thing through. So I really had no option but to have a go.

(Quoted in Brimingham Post, 6 Jun 1969, 24)

Born on 15 June 1914 in Cairo, Egypt, Terence Brandram Hastings Otway was educated at Royal Military College, Sandhurst and took a commission with 2nd Battalion, Royal Ulster Rifles in 1934. He served overseas in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and on the North West frontier in India. Following staff college and War Office duties in London, he transferred to the airborne forces in August 1943 and later became second-in-command of the 9th Parachute Battalion under Lieutenant-Colonel Martin Lindsay. Just months before D-Day, Otway had taken commander under inscrutable circumstances.

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