Orr Hubert Gerald - Overloon War Chronicles

Orr | Hubert Gerald

First names
Hubert Gerald
Age
34
Date of birth
15-04-1910
Date of death
25-09-1944
Service number
50070
Rang
Lieutenant Colonel
Regiment
Durham Light Infantry, Monmouthshire Regiment
Grave number
III. E. 14.

Hubert Gerald Orr

grave Hubert Gerald Orr

Author Arno van Dijk

Faces from the past

3 men, 3 British soldiers, buried in 2 different cemeteries. But still forever connected. Because of that one fateful afternoon, that one fateful minute, there in that Brabant village.

Hubert Orr (1910 – 1944)
Buried in the CWGC cemetery in Overloon, grave number 14, section III, row E

David Silvertop (1912 – 1944)
Buried in the Roman Catholic churchyard in Sint Anthonis, grave number 4

Maurice Lock (1915 – 1944)
Buried in the Roman Catholic churchyard in Sint Anthonis, grave number 3

The fatal fork junction

“We’ve got a troop attachment on that other road, haven’t we?”
“Yes, of course we have.”
“But I don’t think that was one of ours. It sounded a bit like a German machine gun.”
“Yes, it did a bit.”
(Source: quote from ‘Roscoe the bright shiner’, Biography of Charles Barnet ‘Roscoe’ Harvey)

In the bright sunlight, the monument in Sint Anthonis casts its shadow over the stones.
A few cars, cyclists and pedestrians pass this spot.
Now it is a rustic spot in the village.
But at the same time, it is the spot that was the dramatic finale of a series of rapidly successive events all those years ago. Where the liberation of the village seemed to go without too many problems, but where that day suddenly turned into a very dark day.
And where 3 men would totally unexpectedly become forever connected: Hubert Orr, David Silvertop and Maurice Lock.

Biography

Born on Friday 15 April 1910, Hubert Gerald Orr is the second son of Colonel Gerald Maxwell Orr and Evelyn Constance Orr – Leir, who married on 11 February 1904 at Holy Trinity Church in Exmouth, a coastal town near Exeter ( Devon).
Evelyn Leir is the daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Leir.
Gerald Orr, born in 1876, the same year his wife is born, is a military man. He serves, among others, in India (The Indian Army) on the northwestern border and rises to the rank of Colonel. Gerald has been highly decorated throughout his military career with the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) and the DSO (Distinguished Service Order) awarded to him for his bravery and actions during World War I.
In 1906 Gerald and Evelyn’s first child is born, a son: Cecil William Bannon Orr, followed by their second son Hubert Gerald in 1910.

Read the continuation of the biography and file on Hubert Orr, David Silvertop, Maurice Lock and the drama at Sint Anthonis in the full version of “Faces from the Past” below.

Silvertop and Orr: the hand grenade and cover up theory

The truth behind the Sint Anthonis drama, 25 September 1944

Even though an OWC file appears to have been definitively compiled because all available information about the soldier, his history and the circumstances has been included, definitive is sometimes not definitive. Because memories or facts that have not yet been described can still emerge. Memories and facts that still deserve to be told and will then be added to a new version of the file.
If there is one file that is still being developed intermittently, it is the joint file on Orr, Silvertop and Lock and the dramatic events in Sint Anthonis on Monday afternoon 25 September 1944.

On this afternoon 25 September 1944 around 4.30 pm, the British officers Lieutenant Colonel Hubert Orr and Lieutenant Colonel David Silvertop, while consulting with 2 other British officers on a fork junction in the Dutch village of Sint Anthonis, are suddenly fatally hit by German bullets. Those bullets are fired from suddenly passing German half-tracks fleeing from British troops, then end up in the village and, in panic, look for a way out of the village by shooting heavily.That is a fact. Or not?
Because is the truth completely different, as a persistent rumour and several publications still claim? And is it even true, as some claim, that there is even a cover up and the real truth should not be told?

This investigation will be a journey through unexpected things, a dive into known and completely unknown material. And even exclusive material that has never been made public, but which has been made available especially for this investigation.

Read the complete investigation report and results below.

Sources and credits

See the extended list in the full versions.