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Galitzine, Prince Dimitri

Date of birth:
November 20th, 1917 (Kislovodsk (Rep. Georgia))
Date of death:
October 26th, 1944
Buried on:
Commonwealth War Cemetery Uden
Plot: 3. Row: D. Grave: 1.
Service number:
121589
Nationality:
British
Rang/eenheid:
2nd Bn.

Biography

Due to the political upheavals in Russia at the end of the First World War and the associated unrest, Prince Galitzine's family moved from St. Petersburg to Kislovodsk, Georgia in 1917. Dimitri was born there. His father, Prince Boris Galitzine, was killed in June 1919 in the civil war as a member of the White Army against the Bolsheviks at Tsaritsyn, later Stalingrad.
The family fled further to the Crimea; the British destroyer H.M.S. Bruin picked them up there in February 1920 and took them with many other families of noble descent to, among other places, the South of France.
After a stay of about a year, the family moved to England.
Dimitri received education and training there, obtained British nationality and worked at Shell Oil.
In September 1939 he joined the army; his first unit was The South Wales Borderers. After the invasion in June 1944 he was slightly wounded in Caen (Fr.).
On the morning of Wednesday 25 October 1944 he was seriously wounded during a patrol; near the café-ferry house on the Diezekant near the (now disappeared) steam pumping station on the Engelsedijk he was seriously wounded by hits in the stomach. He died of these injuries a day later.

Source: Archive A. Verbakel - Heemkundekring Uden.

He was very popular with his men. He had the nickname: The Cossack.

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Sources