Major Derrick Adolphus Sington was born in 1908. He was the Great Grandson of Adolphus Sington (1810-1887) who emigrated from Breslau and became a Cotton Merchant in Manchester and an early member of the Manchester Hebrew Congregation.
He was in the Wellesley from 1921, becoming a College Prefect and a member of the Upper Ten. He was a good athlete and the Master of the Hunt. He went up to Trinity Oxford after Wellington.
He was initiated initiated into the Lodge in 1932 at the age of 24.
He joined the Intelligence Corps, initially as an enlisted man, rising to the rank of Sergeant, before being commissioned in 1943, ultimately becoming a Major. He served throughout the Second World War.
As a Captain in the Intelligence Corps he commanded 14 Amplifier Unit, part of the Psychological Warfare Section of the British Army. It was with unit and the accompanying American forces that he was among the first to arrive at and enter Belson on 15 April1 1945.
Sington and the Unit remained in the camp for the next two weeks acting as interpreters, using their loudspeaker to restore order in the camp, organising the distribution of food and arresting collaborators hiding amongst the inmates of camp. He would later marry one of the Belsen survivors he had assisted in liberating. He gave evidence at the Nuremberg trials, where his uncle Edward was serving on the British legal team.
The main photograph in the image above shows Sington arranging a broadcast to German troops on the opposite bank of the River Maas, in February 1945. He also acted as interpreter for Lt Colonel Taylor RA Officer Commanding 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment, R.A., who (with one of his Batteries) was to undertake the administration of Belsen.
After the war he became a journalist, spneindg time as the BBC’s Correspondent in the Far East and contributing to Glasgow Herald, Manchester Guardian and the New Statesman. His experiences lead his to write the book Belsen Uncovered and the Goebels Experiment.
He was a member of the Oxford and Cambridge.
Sington with an unnamed American Officer at Belsen.
He died in February 1968.