Alfred Gardyne de Chastelain

Alfred George Gardyne de Chastelain was born in London, England in February 1906, of Anglo-Scots parents and of Huguenot background. He was educated at Dollar Academy in Scotland and the Battersea Polytechnic in London, from which he received a degree in Petroleum Engineering. On graduation, he moved to Romania and worked for UNIREA (British Petroleum) in Bucharest, rising to a managerial position towards the end of the 1930s.

In Bucharest he married Marion Elizabeth Walsh, the daughter of Jack Walsh, an American accountant with Standard Oil of New Jersey in Bucharest.

On the outbreak of war with Germany, de Chastelain was commissioned into the Artists' Rifles and became a member of Special Operations Executive (SOE), with which organization he conducted sabotage operations in the Balkans and served in North Africa. In late 1943, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, he led a team of two other SOE members by parachute into Romania to test the possibility of a surrender of that country to the Allies. Initially captured by the Romanian police he, along with his team, were imprisoned and released in August 1944 when the dictator Marshal Antonescu was overthrown and King Michael acceded to the throne. Awarded the DSO and the OBE, he was demobilised after the war, joining a unit of the SAS in the Territorial Army.

A book giving an account of the SOE Operation in Romania was written by one member of the team, Ivor Porter, later a British Ambassador: "Operation Autonomous: With SOE in Wartime Rumania", Chatto and Windus, 1989.

With partners, de Chastelain started a business in London and Kent in 1945: "Griffin Enterprises", dealing in film processing, import and exports and other activities. In 1954 he left that business to accept a post as Vice-President of the Canadian branch of an American oilwell drilling and services company, H.J Eastman, in Calgary, Alberta. Living for several years in Canada and then in Australia, he returned to Canada in the early 1970s and died in Calgary in 1974 at the age of 68.

Lt-Col (Chas) de Chastelain was a founding member of the Special Forces Club in Knightsbridge, and of the Food and Wine Society in Calgary.