Percy Legard
Charles
Percy Digby Legard was born in Saltash on the 17th of June 1906. His
father was a naval officer, his mother the daughter of a Stockholm
businessman. Educated at Cheltenham College public school, Legard
otherwise spent his childhood in Sweden, where he developed expertise in
skiing and other Nordic sports. He returned to England to attend the Royal
Military College at Sandhurst, afterwards joining the cavalry
regiment which, after a couple of name-changes, became known as the 5th
Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards.
Legard became the British ski-jump champion at St Moritz in 1929, one of the first three Britons to achieve a 50 metre jump, together with Guy Nixon and Colin Wyatt. These three went on to represent Britain in the 1931 World Ski Championships at Oberhof in Germany. Legard also competed in the 1934 Championships, held at Sollefteå in Sweden.
Following the 1931 Championships, Legard began training for Modern Pentathlon in the Summer Olympics. He competed at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1932, where he won the 4 kilometre cross-country element and came 8th overall, and at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Legard later liked to recall that during the opening ceremonial march-past at Berlin, in front of Hitler, he "gave the bastard a V-sign salute!"
Legard also represented Britain at the 1936 Winter Olympics, in the Nordic Combined event, which married a 15 kilometre cross-country ski-race with 2 attempts at the ski-jump. Legard still bears the distinction of being the only Briton ever to have competed in this event at the Olympics.
Legard had married Gertrude Kate Thomson on the 5th of June 1934, and their first daughter, Sarah Anthea, was born just before the start of the Second World War in 1939. By the end of the war their family would be complete, Dinah Annabel being born in 1941 and Lavinia Anlaby in 1944.
Legard's regiment had only pensioned off its horses in 1938, in favour of Mark VI light tanks. Sent to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force, the regiment was caught up in the general confusion and retreat, and was evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940. Back in Britain, the armoured units waited to be re-equipped.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was forming a new force of Commandos, volunteers for special service who would be trained and equipped to carry out raids against German-occupied Europe. Legard volunteered and, as an experienced officer, was given command of №4 Commando. James Dunning, in his book 'The Fighting Fourth' recalls: "The assembly was held in the Weymouth Pavilion, on the sea front, which had been requisitioned as Commando Headquarters. ... For most of us it was the first glimpse of the CO, Lt Col C.P.D. Legard, of the 5th Iniskillen Dragoon Guards, a tall, lean and fit-looking officer with an elegant, yet dashing, appearance in his service dress uniform, shining Sam Browne belt and the distinctive green trousers of that famous cavalry regiment the history of which went back to the seventeenth century."
After Weymouth, №4 Commando underwent training in Scotland. "On one occasion a deer stalk was organised for potential snipers. They returned with three stags, including a magnificent twelve-pointer," says Dunning, and Lt Col Legard "received a rocket from the District Commander over the affair." At the end of their training, however, №4 and №7 Commandos were amalgamated to form the 3rd Special Service Battalion. Lt Col Dudley Lister, CO of №7, was selected to command the new battalion and, reluctantly, Legard returned to his regiment.
Re-equipped with Cromwell and Sherman tanks, the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards returned to France shortly after the Normandy landings in 1944. They fought across France, Belgium, Holland and into Germany with the 7th Armoured Division, and were in Hamburg when Germany surrendered in May 1945.
Legard retired from service on the 19th of May 1949 with the honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
British interest in ski-jumping was now beginning to revive – Harry Stone, in his book 'Ski Joy', notes that in 1950 Legard "with the blessing of the Downhill Only Club, took to coaching the British over a baby jump just outside Mary's Café at Wengen. Anyone inclined could try for their bronze or silver Ski Club medals. In the evening Percy would reappear, this time playing the drums in the pink-washed cellar bar at The Palace."
Widowed in 1969, Lieutenant Colonel Percy Legard died in Ryedale, Yorkshire on the 16th of February 1980.
page updated 2025-03-21
