Page 205 - They Also Served

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Richard Sharples 1936.
Richard Christopher Sharples was born on 6th August 1916. At Sandhurst, he qualified as a French interpreter and was commissioned into the Welsh Guards in 1936. Sharples served throughout the Second World War, being severely wounded in the leg, awarded the MC, a US Silver Star and MiD, and, later in the war, serving on the staff of Field Marshal Montgomery. In 1946, he married Pamela Newall at a ceremony attended by the dowager Queen Mary.
A keen yachtsman, Sharples became friends with Conservative politician Edward Heath and was persuaded to run for parliament, winning the seat of Sutton and Cheam in a 1954 by-election. Under the patronage of Heath, Sharples was made minister of state at the Home Office in 1970 and knighted, but resigned his seat two years later when offered the governorship of Bermuda. The governor was entitled to an ADC – Captain Richard Sayers from the Welsh Guards was selected for this role.
On 9th September 1972, George Duckett, a Briton serving as the police commissioner of Bermuda, was assassinated at his home on the island. A militant Black Power group, the Black Berets Cadre, was suspected, but detectives drafted in from the UK were unable to find the culprits. On the evening of 10th March 1973, Sir Richard hosted a small dinner party at Government House. The party coincided with the annual police ball and, despite the recent murder of Duckett, the compound was only guarded by one unarmed constable. After dinner, Sharples and Sayers, who was carrying a 9mm Browning pistol for protection, and the governor’s great Dane, Horsa, went for a stroll in the grounds. Four shots rang out, and both men and the dog were found dead, killed at close range.
Both were buried with full military honours on the island, with Lady Sharples insisting that it was her husband’s duty to be buried where he served. Four weeks later, two white storekeepers were murdered in their shop and spent casings at the scene were linked to the Duckett murder. In September 1973, an armed man robbed
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