Eric was the son of George Henry Greenwood
On 1st April 1941, he married Catherine de Vaux Mackinnon [1909-19??] in Halifax.
Catherine was born in Toronto, the daughter of Mary Lilian (née Vaux) [1879-1975] & Rev Murdoch Archibald MacKinnon [1871-1954].Her mother is noted as one of Canada's early women writers
Children:
He was a gliding enthusiast and died tragically in a gliding accident near Edgehill [13th June 2009] (aged 64).
Erik had a gift for languages and was educated at The Leys, Cambridge for HM Consular Service.
In 1939, he was studying Russian in Estonia and on returning to the UK joined the Corps of Military Police in October 1939.
He joined the Intelligence Corps and served in Norway in 1940, with 5 Battalion Scots Guards, an Independent Company.
Subsequently, Erik trained at Cambridge as an interrogator of German POWs and served with Special Operations Executive in Cairo, Egypt, [1942-1943].
With SOE as liaison officer (Captain) to the Chetniks in Yugoslavia [1943-1944] where he was mentioned in Despatches.
He was with the Control Commission in Germany [1945-46] and is said to have been involved in high-level treaty negotiations in the post-war years.
He was demobilised as Major and became a Director of the Aluminum-Canada Company Ltd (Alcan), of Bruton Street, London for 25 years.
The family moved to India in 1955 and Erik later worked for Rio Tinto-Zinc in the UK.
In 1990, Erik recorded his wartime experiences for the Imperial War Museum's Oral History Project. His recordings can be found at the Imperial War Museum's website.
He was mentioned in a 1992 BBC documentary about Tito's Yugoslavia, in a book about Erik's wartime exploits titled MissFire, by Major Jasper Rootham and in a Wikipedia page about the Yugoslav Mission Greenwood-Rootham
This & associated entries use material contributed by Les Piggin
Page Ref: X485
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