Captain John Cutress MC – 134962
9 September 1920 – 4 November 2000
John Stephen Cutress was born on September 9 1920 in a room above his father’s bakery at Ditchling in Sussex. At Brighton and Hove Grammar School he won his cricket colours and was captain of water polo, as well as being an enthusiastic member of the OTC.
In 1938-39 he worked in London as an apprentice baker at John Barkers, and also at Floris, in Jermyn Street. In the evenings he attended a Crafts & Guilds course at Borough Bakery School, winning first prize. He returned home to Sussex to work at his father’s business, Forfars Bakers, in 1939.
John joined the Territorials – 113 Field Regiment – at Shoreham. He attended an OCTU at Catterick before being commissioned, in early 1941, into 111th Field Regiment and posted to 212 Battery where he served throughout the war from North Africa, Sicily, Italy and the Adriatic.
While taking part in the raid on Sarande, Albania, John won the Military Cross for his part in the battle. His obituary detailed the following information:
John Cutress was serving as a captain in 111th Field Regiment RA, when his battery – which had just taken part, in support of the Commandos and Tito’s Partisans, in the battle for Sumartin on the island of Brac – was ordered to join up with Brigadier Tom Churchill’s Commando force in Albania.
Having landed at night near “Sugar Beach” and teamed up with a troop of No 2 Commando, it was not long before Cutress and his battery were bringing fire down on enemy positions – which prompted the Germans to send a patrol up to the battery’s observation post (OP) overlooking Sarande’s defences. Cutress was on his way with a party of men to relieve the observation post when he heard small arms fire and met four Commandos of the OP protection party who told him that a group of between 40 and 50 Germans had come between them and the OP and that they had been forced to withdraw.
Cutress now entered a shepherd’s croft, used as a night shelter for the OP signallers, and telephoned the information through to Force HQ. He rejoined his OP party at the place where he had left them – to find only one of his signallers there, the others having withdrawn with the Commandos. In a fast enveloping mist, he and the signaller, after a reconnaissance of the hill, made their way to the OP. Hearing Germans shouting nearby, Cutress returned to the shepherd’s croft, there to find two more of his battery signallers who had left the Commandos and returned to look for him.
Cutress now set off to rescue the OP equipment. As the mist cleared, the German patrol opened fire; Cutress returned fire and withdrew his party – one of whom was wounded – to the cover of some nearby rocks. He organised the evacuation of his wireless/telephone set and equipment, and sent the party back.
Now alone, Cutress teed-in his telephone to the OP line, reported the situation to Force HQ and directed gunfire on to the enemy, who began to withdraw. Forty minutes later, a party of Commandos and gunner-signallers arrived, and Cutress led them to re-occupy the OP. “Due entirely to Captain Cutress’s coolness and initiative,” his citation proclaimed, “he single-handedly recaptured an OP vital to the whole operation and drove off some 40 Germans.”
The next day (October 4 1944), his citation continued, Cutress “followed up this act of gallantry by some very fine shooting when he destroyed one staff car, one half-track vehicle, and a motor-cycle. Two lorry loads and one ambulance of wounded and dead were seen to be removed from the enemy position.”
On demobilisation in 1946, he returned to working for Forfars Bakers and in outside catering. In 1948 he went to Switzerland to attend a nine-month course at the Lausanne Ecole Hotelier, obtaining a diploma and winning the Prix Stamm Cours de Cuisine.
Thereafter, Cutress spent his career in the bakery, hotel, restaurant and catering business in Sussex, with several establishments, including the Pump House in Brighton, and the Eaton restaurant and Courtlands Hotel in Hove. He undertook the catering – sometimes for as many as 3,000 people – for events at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton.
He was active in the Brighton and Hove Hotels and Restaurants Association, and in the Hove Traders’ Association. He served as president of the Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce, and for many years as a local magistrate. He was also a member of Sussex County Cricket Committee. He edited the newsletter of the Reunion des Gastronomes, and in 1952 he was honoured by Clos de Vougeot, Burgundy, as a Chevalier du Tastevin, being promoted Officier Commandeur in 1994.
He married, in 1948, June Ring; they had four daughters: Elizabeth, Julia, Sara and Caroline.
John died at home in Hove on 4th November 2000.
Speaking to one of John’s daughters, she recalled the following…
“He did not like to talk about his war. When we asked how he had won his Military Cross , his reply was always that it was because of bad temper! It was only when he died and we saw his citation that we realised what he had done to win the MC.
Dad was very fond of all his army friends. He told us that there were so many called John in his Regiment that he was called Sammy by them! I have to say anyone I spoke to always had great things to say about his leadership and friendship.
He did organise a reunion of his army friends in Hove Sussex. He used to go up to Bolton for the Remembrance Day parade sometimes.
We know that Dad was at the Battle of El Alamein, and I have letters written from him when he was in the desert, they were heavily censored though. We know that as part of the artillery he was involved in the bombardment and always spoke well of his gun! Whenever 23rd October came round he remembered the start of Alamein and funnily enough one of my granddaughters was born on that day so we still remember it!
He was a very hard working man, a loving father, husband and grandfather. He was always very hospitable, travelled around the world and loved sport and introduced all of us to football (Brighton and Hove Albion) and cricket!”