Cambridgeshire Regiment’s former CO Walter Page dies aged 99 at his home in King’s Lynn

Capt Page during the Second World War (Image: Archant)

Walter Page moved to Lynn in 1946. He was achartered accountant and a partner in the East Anglian firm of Larking, Larking and Whiting until retirement in 1981.

Though born in London, his parents were both from Norfolk; they returned with their young family during the First World War to live near Norwich. Walter went to boarding school, first to Taverham Hall, then on to Canford School in Dorset. He excelled academically and in sport, playing at Junior Wimbledon whilst at school and going on to represent Norfolk both at tennis and at hockey.

In 1938 he enrolled with the Territorial Army in Wisbech and was deployed with the 18th (East Anglian) Division to Singapore during the war.

As an officer of the 2nd Battalion the Cambridgeshire Regiment, the then Capt Page saw fierce fighting in the weeks leading up to the fall of Singapore. He was later awarded the Military Cross for gallantry.

With the fall of Singapore in 1942, tens of thousands of allied troops were to pass into long and brutal captivity, but Capt Page was ordered by his commanding officer to form an escape party.

In the midst of constant bombardment and with many setbacks, they managed to get away from Singapore Island just half an hour before it fell, by taking a lifeboat from a burnt out ship in the harbour and loading it with food from a warehouse, before starting to row.

Of the 20,000 men in the 18th Division, who had arrived four weeks earlier, just 30 got away. They reached Sumatra after several days of mishap and danger and were then evacuated to Java and thence, in the only boat available, an old Chinese flat-bottomed river steamer, they crossed the Indian Ocean to Ceylon. Capt Page joined Ceylon Army Command as a staff officer. He saw further action in Burma towards the end of the war.

He rejoined the Territorial Army after the war and went on to become commanding officer of the Cambridgeshire Regiment. In later life he enjoyed visits to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford and in particular to the Cambridgeshire's regimental collection to which he had contributed a number of items.

Walter Page developed a lifelong interest and involvement in freemasonry, receiving many honours during his lifetime and being for many years the Deputy Provincial Grand Master for Norfolk.

Married for over 50 years, his wife Ruth died many years before him. He was a man of deep Christian faith, involved in many different ways in the life of the church, attending St Margaret's (now King's Lynn Minster) for over 60 years.

His funeral will take place at King's Lynn Minster on Tuesday, June 3, at 2.45 pm.