- SURNAME
Czernin von und zu Chudenitz
- FORENAME
Graf (Count) Manfred Maria Edmund Ralph Beckett
- UNIT
SOE Italy
- RANK
Squadron Leader
- NUMBER
37148
- AWARD
Distinguished Service Order,Military Cross
- PLACE
Italy 1944 (MC) Italy 1945 (DSO)
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
born 18.1.1913 Berlin,Germany
son of Graf (Count) Otto Rudolf and the hon.Lucy Catherine (nee Beckett) Czernin,etc
father Austrian,mother English, daughter of 2nd Baron Grimthorpe
educated Oundle School
worked briefly for engineering firm
to Southern Rhodesia to work on a tobacco plantation September 1931
returned to UK April 1935
Royal Air Force 1935
57 and 83 Squadrons
R.A.F. Reserve August 1937
recalled to active service 1939
12 Group Pool (Pilot Officer)
504,213,85,17 Squadrons 1940
award D.F.C. (air ace with 13 and 5 shared victories)
17 Squadron,52 OTU,65 and 222 Squadrons 1941 (S/Ldr Dec.1941)
41 and 146 Squadrons,Staff Officer 224 Group 1942
HQ 28 Group and Air Ministry Unit,London 1943
S.O.E. September 1943
alias Major Beckett
Italy 1944-45
HQ Fighter Command 1945
left R.A.F. 2.10.1945
married Maud Sarah Hamilton 4.11.1939 (2 children) (divorced 1947)
biography "Double Mission" (Norman Franks) 1976
died 6.10.1962 London
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