Gregg Close
Commemorating a remarkable man
Gregg Close was named in memory of Victor James Thomas Gregg (1919–2021) – a soldier, spy and author who lived at 13 Springvale for many years and died three days short of his 102nd birthday.
Vic was the last known survivor of the 10th Parachute Battalion that had jumped into Arnhem on 17th September 1944 and later, as a prisoner of war, he survived the bombing of Dresden. After the war, as chauffeur and bodyguard for the chairman of the Moscow Narodny Bank in London, Vic was picked up by British intelligence and was soon working as a double agent. With Rick Stroud he later wrote four books about his experiences: Rifleman (2011 and 2019), King’s Cross Kid (2013), Dresden (2013) and Soldier, Spy (2015).
Victor Gregg was born on 15th October 1919 in Kings Cross, London. The eldest of three children, his father vanished when the third child arrived leaving the family in poverty. His mother, a seamstress, struggled to cope, so Vic and his younger brother were sent to live with grandparents in Bloomsbury. Despite winning a scholarship to the London School of Music he had to leave school at 14 and start work.
On his 18th birthday, Vic joined the Rifle Brigade and after basic training set sail for India with the 2nd Battalion in December 1938. The Second War began on 3rd September 1939 and Britain’s far-flung troops were soon on the move; the 2nd Battalion was shipped to Haifa in Palestine before transferring to a forward military base in Egypt as the North African campaign got underway.
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Victor Gregg saw heavy fighting at Beda Fomm in Libya and later at the Battle of Sidi Rezegh in October 1941. He was soon making a name for himself leading reconnaissance patrols, sometimes several hundred miles behind enemy lines and he was seconded to a secret unit called the Libyan Arab Force Commando, led by Major (later Lt Col) Vladimir Peniakoff – known as “Popski”. The force made contact with small groups of Bedouin in remote desert areas to glean information about German activity. Vic’s job was to deliver the various food commodities given in exchange for such information and relay it to the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) – one of the precursors of the SAS – who would then use it to harass enemy troops. Vic was also involved in collecting wounded members of the LRDG and driving them to back to base.
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Vic rejoined the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade in time to take part in the Battle of El Alamein (October/November 1942) before volunteering to join a new parachute battalion then being formed in Palestine – 10 Para. After a brief campaign in Italy the battalion was back in Britain preparing for D-Day and in September took part in Operation Market Garden – the ill-fated “bridge too far” attempt to shorten the war with an advance bridgehead. Of the 582 men who jumped into Holland with 10 Para only 36 returned to the UK. Of the 10,000 allied paratroopers who took part in Market Garden 6,525 were taken prisoner – among them was Victor Gregg.
 Victor Gregg |
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 Rifleman, by Victor Gregg and Rick Stroud |
​Vic eventually ended up working as forced labour in a soap factory on the outskirts of Dresden, where he and a fellow PoW decided to mixed cement with the soap. It set hard overnight, jammed the machinery, blew the electric circuits and set the factory ablaze. The Gestapo were called, the culprits identified and sentenced to death. On the 13th February 1945 Vic and his fellow prisoners were awaiting their fate when the massive allied bombing that turned Dresden into a fireball began. The prison was bombed and those that survived escaped into the inferno that was Dresden. He joined hundreds of PoWs and foreign workers assembled around the perimeter of the devastated city who – equipped with picks and shovels – began searching for survivors and retrieving bodies.
After more than a week of rescue work, becoming concerned that he might be recaptured and finally executed, Vic slipped away from the group. He moved eastwards and encountered the advancing Russian forces. Eventually returning to Tidworth for debriefing the assessors were suspicious that he had turned East, rather than West towards the advancing allies and a ew weeks later he was dismissed the army.
Various jobs followed and, disillusioned by his treatment from the army, he joined the Communist Party and started to make trips on an old motorbike to Yugoslavia, behind the Iron Curtain. His links to the party brought him the chauffeuring job at the Moscow Narodny Bank who wanted a “politically-reliable” employee. Regularly driving to the Societ Embassy and the Russian Trade Delegation Vic soon realised he was ferrying Russian agents around and began keeping the British Security Service informed of any people or locations that might be of interest to them.
This ended in 1962 when Vic began driving London buses instead. His first marriage ended in divorce and Vic then married his bus conductress, Elizabeth “Betty” Barnet. The couple moved first to Taunton and worked on Somerset’s buses before settling in Swanmore at Springvale.
In his spare time Vic went on motor cycle trips all over Europe, usually staying at campsites. His connections with East Germany and Hungary – dating back to his days at the bank working with British Intelligence – resulted in approaches from shadowy figures on both sides of the Iron Curtain and undercover courier trips to both countries enlivened his long years of retirement. When he was 70, he was invited as the guest of honour by the Hungarian Democratic Forum to make the first cut in the barbed wire fencing separating the east from the west, the beginning of the end of the Berlin wall, which fell four months later.
After Betty died Vic moved to a care home and died on 12th October 2021. He was buried next the 10th Para memorial at Borough-on-the Hill near Somerby in Leicestershire where the battalion had trained prior to Operation Market Garden.
Rick Stroud, with whom Vic wrote his books, ended his own tribute to Vic with:
“Vic was interviewed many times on radio and television. The message that he wanted to leave was that war may sometimes be necessary but it is not the way to solve the world’s problems, and he knew what he was talking about. I am honoured to have been his friend and collaborator. His life is best summed up by the officer who wrote on his discharge papers: ‘During an exceedingly colourful career this Rifleman has served long and continuous periods in active operations with front line units. He is an individual of great courage, capable of applying himself best to a task when the need is greatest’.”