Colin was born in Yorkshire on 29 December 1910, the second child of David Alexander Hay and Gertrude (née Wallace - they had married in Gertrude's home Walton area of Liverpool on 27 March 1902). The 1911 Census records the family living at 85 Beamsley Road, Shipley in the then West Riding of Yorkshire. 37 year old David - originally from Fife in Scotland - is listed as an Artist employed at a Lithography works. As usual, no occupation is listed for 34 year old Gertrude - originally from Liverpool - busy looking after 3 month old Colin and his 5 year old sister Mary (like Colin, also born in Yorkshire). The family had a live-in 21 year old servant, Ada Knight.

At some point, the family moved to the Borough. The 1939 Register records all four of them lodging with the apparently unrelated and widowed 43 year old Jessie M Painter (a "Nurse) at 40 Wheelers Lane, Epsom. 67 year old David is listed as "Artist (Retired)"; 64 year old Gertrude with the conventional "Unpaid Domestic Duties"; unmarried 32 year old Mary is listed as a "Cakemaker"; and unmarried 28 year old Colin as an "Insurance Clerk". (The original record - rather than the transcript - is annotated to note that Mary was in the British Red Cross Society's Civil Nursing Reserve and that Colin was an "Officer Cadet, Reserve".)

On 21 June 1941, Colin was granted an Emergency Commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Seaforth Highlanders, an infantry regiment. It appears that his first experience of action was in Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943. He was by now a full Lieutenant in the Seaforth Highlanders' 6th Battalion, which formed part of the British 5th Infantry Division - in turn some of the 160,000 troops the Allies committed to the operation which, although ultimately successful, came at a very heavy price.

The operation began with the mass drop of airborne troops in the very early hours of 10 July 1943. Part of these were tasked with seizing the Ponte Grande (the bridge over the River Anape just south of Syracuse) and holding it until the 5th Infantry Division arrived from the beaches at Cassibile, some 7 miles to the south. Strong winds of up to 45 mph blew the troop-carrying aircraft and gliders off course, with many gliders crash-landing in the sea. The stormy weather also complicated the 5th Infantry Division's beach landing at Cassibile. While some British paratroops had taken the Ponte Grande, they had insufficient resources to resist the enemy's counter attack and had to relinquish their position some 45 minutes before the leading elements of the British 5th Division arrived from the south.

At some point in these early hours of the operation, Colin was (according to Casualty List No. 1208) killed in action. He is one of 1,059 Commonwealth WW2 burials in the Syracuse War Cemetery, Sicily.

Roger Morgan © 2018