Major Ion Melville Calvocoressi Administration Member of the Order of the British Empire Military Cross was an officer in the British Army in the Second World War and later a stockbroker in the City of London.
Background
Calvocoressi was born in Calcutta, the only child of Matthew John Calvocoressi (1873–1939). His father was descended from a Greek family from Chios. Two uncles married into the Ralli family.
His mother, Agnes Hermione Melville, was of Anglo-Scottish ancestry and was the granddaughter of Michael Linning Melville.
Education
He was educated at Eton College and read Modern Languages at Magdalen College, Oxford.
Career
He was High Sheriff of Kent in 1978-1979. He was a director of the Indian branch of Greek merchant business, Ralli Brothers. After the outbreak of the Second World War, he was commissioned into the Scots Guards in 1940, and was posted to Egypt with the 2nd Battalion in 1941.
After days of intense fighting, the battalion was attacked by two armoured columns from the 21st Panzer Division on 13 June 1942.
His platoon destroyed five German tanks before it was overrun. Calvocoressi was captured, but escaped the following night.
He rejoined his unit the next day after walking 17 miles (27 km) across the desert. He accompanied Leese in North Africa, and, after Leese took command of the Eighth Army, into Italy, and finally to the Far East, where Leese became commander of Allied Land Forces South East Asia.
He received the Administration Member of the Order of the British Empire for his service.
He became a stockbroker after the war, concentrating on private client work. He moved to Westerham in Kent in 1950, near the country home of Winston Churchill at Chartwell. He was instrumental in the erection of a statue of Churchill by Oscar Nemon in the town in 1965.
He was High Sheriff of Kent in 1978-1979.
After he retired, he was chairman of the appeal for the Guards Museum at Wellington Barracks.
Views
The battalion was defending a ridge at Bir El Rigel in Libya.
Membership
He was wounded in July 1942, rescuing members of the battalion"s forward observation post, and became aide-de-camp to the commander of XXX Corps, Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese in 1943. He was also a life member of the Marylebone Cricket Club, a Fellow of the Ancient Monuments Society, and a financial adviser to the Royal Society of Musicians.