James Power Carne

  General Notes:

The Times (London) Fridat, Nov 15, 1946.
LIETENANT-COLONEL J.P. CARNE AND MRS. J.T.GIBSON.
The engagement is announced between Lieutenant-Colonel James Power Carne. The Gloucestershire Regiment, second son of Mr. G. N. Carne and the late Mrs. Carne, of Gararas, Falmouth, and Jean (nee Ferguson), widow of Lietenant-Colonel J. T. (Hoot) Gibson. The Welsch Regiment, of Towerhill Cottage, Crossways, near Monmouth.
The Times (London) Tuesday, Dec 24, 1946.
MAJOR J. P. CARNE AND MRS. J. T. GIBSON.
The marriage of Major J. P. Carne, The Gloucestershire Regiment, and Mrs. J. T. Gibson took place quietly at St. Bridget’s Church, Skenfrith, on December 20.

Lt. Col. J. P. Carne was reported missing in Korea in The Times, May 2 1951.

The Times (London) Thursday, Nov 19, 1953.
AMERICAN AWARDS TO BRITISH OFFICERS.
COL. CARNE DECORATED.
Six British army and naval officers, headed by Lieutenant-Colonel J.P.Carne, V.C., The Gloucester Regiment, received awards by the President of the United States at an investure held at the American Ambassador in London yesterday in the presence of the Duke of Glocester.
Lieutenant-Colonel Carne received the Distinguished Service Cross, a military award for valor.
Others who received awards were:-Vice-Admiral Sir William G. Andrewes and Vice-Admiral A. K. Scott-Moncrieff (Legion of Merit, Degree of Commander); Brigadier W. G. H. Pike, Royal Artillery (Legion of Merit, Degree of Officer); and Surgeon Captain T. B. Lynagh, R. N., and Colonel E. C. W. Myers, Royal Engineers (Legion of Merit, Degree of Legionnaire).
The awards were won for actions in Korea. After the citations had been read the American Ambassador, Mr. Aldrich, pinned the medals on the breast of the recipients and hung round the necks of the two naval officers the insignia of their awards.

The Times (London) Thursday, Jan 14, 1954.
NEW APPOINTEMENT FOR COLONEL CARNE.
The War Office announced last night that Lieutenant-Colonel J. P. Carne, V.C., The Glouchestershire Regiment,had been appointed Commandant of the Army Apprentice’s School at Harrogate, with the rank of colonel, and with effect from the beginning of April, 1954. Colonel Carne will be 48 in April.

Carne, James Power (1906–1986), army officer, was born on 11 April 1906 at 8 Cambridge Place, Falmouth, Cornwall, the son of George Newby Carne, manager of the Falmouth Brewery, and his wife, Annie Emily, née Power. He was educated at the Imperial Service College, Windsor (later merged with Haileybury College) and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the Gloucestershire regiment in 1925. He was seconded to the King's African rifles from 1930 to 1936 but returned to become adjutant of the 1st battalion, the Gloucestershire regiment, from 1937 to 1940. After the outbreak of the Second World War he returned to the King's African rifles, then served on the staff in Madagascar. He commanded the 6th and 26th battalions of the King's African rifles between 1943 and 1946, and served in Burma in 1944. On 20 December 1946 he married Jean Gibson (1908/9–1992), daughter of William Harry Ferguson, businessman, and widow of Lieutenant-Colonel J. T. Gibson, of the Welch regiment. There was one son from her first marriage, but no children of her marriage to Carne.
Carne commanded the 5th (TA) battalion of the Gloucestershire regiment from 1947 to 1950, but when the 1st battalion was ordered to Korea in August 1950 he was appointed to command it. At the end of the Second World War, Korea, which had been annexed by Japan in 1905, was divided at the 38th parallel, leaving Soviet forces dominating the northern zone and the United States the southern. North Korea then became a Soviet-influenced communist state and South Korea a democracy under United States tutelage. On 25 June 1950 North Korean troops invaded South Korea and thus produced a reaction from the United Nations, which mustered an intervention force; although this was largely American, it contained elements from many other countries. After initial setbacks the UN force, commanded by General Douglas MacArthur, made a brilliant counter-attack, destroying the North Korean army, and advanced into North Korea with the intention of unifying the country. This move alarmed the Chinese who, after issuing warnings, intervened with large numbers of fanatical, experienced troops, and drove the UN forces back over the 38th parallel.
Carne was awarded a DSO for his handling of his troops in the early stages of the war, and was awarded the Victoria Cross for his part in the Gloucesters' heroic stand on the Imjin River between 22 and 24 April 1951. For three days and nights the Gloucesters were attacked by Chinese forces, who outnumbered them by twenty to one. The Gloucesters, who began the battle with fewer than 800 men, were trying to hold a front of 12,000 yards. The Imjin itself was not a formidable obstacle to the attackers. In these circumstances Carne, a quiet, almost inarticulate officer, led by example, moving about the battlefield with unruffled calm, often smoking a pipe, although the enemy machine-gun and mortar fire were unrelenting. Air support and reinforcements failed to reach him, and his task as a commander of an infantry battalion in a precarious situation was not helped by misleading and often inexplicable orders from the higher command. On several occasions he took command of small assault parties himself in order to recover positions which had been lost. With ammunition almost all expended, a huge number of casualties (only 169 of the original strength were still on their feet) and with the Chinese bypassing on either side, Carne was told that, as he could not be relieved, he should divide his remaining troops into small groups and order them to make for the UN line further back. He himself was captured while commanding one of those smaller groups. The Chinese had by then taken such heavy losses that they never again attempted a similar frontal assault.
Captivity in North Korea proved very different from internment in Germany or Italy in the Second World War, and was similar to the sadistic treatment experienced by the prisoners who fell into Japanese hands in 1942. Starvation, torture, and back-breaking hard work were routine procedures to break the spirits of prisoners and to make them convert to communism. Political lectures were delivered, but the main inducement was that conversion would be followed by freedom—in Korea or China. Successes were very few and this fact owed much to the steadfastness and resilience shown by Carne and others, although they were weakened by disease and dismayed by the increasing number of deaths among the prisoners. (However, one convert was George Blake, who later became an important Soviet agent working in the Foreign Office.) At one stage Carne and a fellow officer were convicted of having a ‘generally hostile’ attitude towards communism, forced to read out bogus confessions, and put in solitary confinement. Carne preserved his sanity by making stone carvings. He and his fellow prisoners were eventually released after more than two years of captivity, and returned to a heroes' welcome at Southampton on 15 October 1953.
In addition to the VC and DSO, Carne was awarded the American Distinguished Service Cross (in 1953). He retired from the army in 1957, settling in Cranham, Gloucestershire, was granted the freedom of Gloucester in 1953 and of Falmouth in 1954, and was deputy lieutenant for Gloucester in 1960. His only comment on his captivity was: ‘I have gained an added pride in being British and have lost a little weight’ (The Times). He died of bronchopneumonia and carcinoma of the pharynx at the Cotswold Nuffield Nursing Home, Talbot Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, on 19 April 1986. He was survived by his wife and stepson. He was buried at Cranham, and the stone cross which he carved for use at prison camp services was placed in Gloucester Cathedral.
Written by Philip Warner

James married Jean Ferguson, daughter of William Harry Ferguson and Rhoda Holmes, on 20 Dec 1946 in St Bridgets, Skenfrith, Abbergavenny, Gwent, Wales UK. (Jean Ferguson was born in 1909 and died in 1992.)