The son of the King’s Speech’s, Lionel Logue
Captain Antony Lionel Logue, Scots Guards and WW2 veteran
Captain Antony L. Logue, Adjutant, 1st Battalion, Scots Guards, Italy 1944-45 as he appeared later in life (image ancestry.com)
My interest in writing this short story is twofold: firstly, as a fan of the film The King’s Speech, and secondly, like Lionel Logue’s Australian-born son Antony, I was also an Australian serving in the Scots Guards – one of many over the years. When I was visiting London at the time that The King’s Speech premiered, I learned that Lionel Logue’s son, Captain Antony Lionel Logue, served with the 1st Battalion, Scots Guards, during the Second World War. For me, it was a great honour to serve in the regiment, and by means of giving back, this story is of just one Scots Guardsman from ‘the greatest generation.’
Antony Lionel Logue was born in Perth, Western Australia, on 10 November 1920 and four years later, he arrived in Southampton along with his parents, Lionel Logue, a former teacher, who was a ‘specialist in speech defects’ and his mother, Mrytle. The Logue’s lived at Beechgrove, Sydenham Hill, Camberwell, London, while Antony attended Dulwich College and London University, where he was a medical student. He had his first taste of military life when he joined the Officer Training Corps in 1935 and was a lance corporal when he left in 1938.
It was about this time that Antony’s father, Lionel, was in attendance to King George VI in relation to helping him overcome his stammer. Antony, also had the opportunity to travel through Belgium and Germany and could speak French and a little German. He was an acquaintance of Captain, the honorable Francis W. Erskine, who served with the Scots Guards in the Great War and most probably influenced him to join the regiment.
A week before his twentieth birthday and seven months after the evacuation at Dunkirk, Antony ceased his medical studies to join the Scots Guards. Having already applied for a temporary commission with the Scots Guards, he was attested into the regiment as a guardsman on 7 November 1940 and was immediately sent to the Guards Depot at Caterham for his recruit training. Four months later, on 22 February 1941, he marched into the 161st Officer Cadet Training Unit at Sandhurst. Following an intense commissioning course, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Scots Guards on 17 May 1941, and the same day, he was posted to the Scots Guards Training Battalion at Pirbright. Interestingly, of the ten subalterns commissioned into the regiment that day from the 161st OCTU, five would be killed in action, one became a prisoner of war, two were wounded, of which one was wounded twice before being killed, another resigned in 1943 and Antony survived unscathed.
Following six months at Pirbright on 24 November 1941, he was posted to the 1st Battalion at Chislehurst, Kent, where he met many veterans of the 1940 Norwegian campaign. In the battalion, he became known as ‘Boy’ Logue, which stuck in regimental circles throughout his life. In 1942, he obtained distinctions in the 3” Mortar Instructors Course and the Liaison Officers Course at the School of Tactics. Soon after these courses, he was promoted to lieutenant on 1 October 1942 and posted as a junior liaison officer to the staff of the 24th Guards Independent Brigade.
On 9 March 1943, he disembarked in Algiers with the 24th Brigade staff, while the 1st Battalion, Scots Guards, were part of the brigade group that disembarked on the same day; thus, he was never far away from familiar faces and the regimental family. During the Tunisian campaign, he was on the strength of the brigade headquarters the entire time, apart from several days when he was admitted to the 137th Field Ambulance in April. At the end of a short but tough campaign in May, one officer summarized their recent experience: ‘I never knew what real fatigue-mental and physical-was, till last week.’
Still working with the 24th Brigade staff, Antony waited in Tunis until they disembarked along with the 1st Battalion at Taranto, Italy, on 7 December 1943 after which, they would be fighting for the next 18-months. On 28 January 1944, during the Anzio operations, he was promoted to acting captain, and remaining as a liaison officer, he was made temporary captain on 28 April.
It was on 29 September 1944, that his days as a liaison officer came to an end as he was posted back to the 1st Battalion as the adjutant just as the Battle of Catarelto was kicking off. The regimental history records that ‘Colonel Cardiff brought his headquarters up to Palazzo, where the new Adjutant, Captain A.L. Logue, fresh from the comforts of Brigade Headquarters, was rudely reintroduced to the rigors of Battalion life.’
Indeed, campaign life in Italy was tough, with one operation rolling into another and a relentless attrition rate of casualties that never abated until the war ended in May 1945.
On 11 April 1945, one of his reports in relation to the action at the Valetta Canal illustrates this grind and the attrition of casualties:
‘We had quite a sharp ‘go’ the other day [5 April] and, I regret to say, we lost Angus COLQUHOUN and a Gdsn [Whyte] who was with him at a river crossing. We made a thorough search afterwards but as the ground is still in enemy hands it was extremely difficult and no further sign of him has been seen. This is a great loss as he was one of our very best and also an extremely nice man and everybody feels his loss very keenly. George MANN had a piece of mortar in his cheek and has been operated on, but I hear he will be back very soon.’
It was in June 1945 that his mother became seriously ill and died. Being due some leave, he was sent home, and not long after arriving, there was a flurry of correspondence about ‘Boy’ being needed back at the battalion. He returned to Italy on 8 August and after handing over his duties as adjutant, he returned to England on 11 December, where he joined the training battalion; his days of overseas service were over.
He was transferred as a lieutenant to the officer reserves on 11 February 1946 and on 1 January 1949, he was promoted to honorary captain. He returned to his studies and attended Queen’s College, Cambridge, and becoming a solicitor he still maintained his ties with the regiment through the Third Guards Club and the D-Day Dodgers Dining Club. His father, Lionel Logue CVO, died in April 1953, and he married in November of the same year. Captain Antony Logue died at Dewes Lodge, Warminster, Wiltshire, on 20 August 2001.
References: Ancestry.com; Scots Guards Regimental Archives and David Erskine’s, The Scots Guards 1919-1945.