[listed on the OW Memorial as R.A. Austin as the name change to Harrison-Austin took place after he had left]

Robert was granted a commission in the Honourable Artillery Company in 1937 shortly after leaving school and then on the outbreak of war transferred to the Royal Artillery, being stationed in Gibraltar for three and a half years in the rank of Temporary Major. It was whilst stationed here that in the course of his duties he met many of the distinguished Allied leaders who used Gibraltar as a staging post on their travels; amongst them Prime Minister Winston Churchill, General Dwight D. Eisenhower and General Władysław Sikorski, prime minister of the Polish government-in-exile and Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces. [Sikorski was to lose his life in July 1943 when an aircraft in which he was a passenger plunged into the sea immediately after take-off from Gibraltar killing all on board except the pilot].

Whilst serving in Gibraltar his duties sometimes included being sent as King’s Messenger to Morocco. Robert returned to England in the summer of 1943 where for a time he was a gunnery instructor at Cromer, Norfolk.

1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery landed in Italy from Palestine in May 1944 at Taranto and Robert joined them in August of that year and at the time of his death at the age of 27 on Tuesday 10^th April 1945 was commanding the famous A Battery (The Chestnut Troop) Royal Horse Artillery, the senior Battery in the Royal Artillery. Robert is at rest in Faenza War Cemetery, Italy.

Son of Agnes Beatrice Austin of Cofton Hackett, Worcestershire.

A copy of Robert's story may be downloaded  here.

See also the Commonwealth War Graves Commission permanent digital memorial, ‘Evermore: Stories of the fallen’ relating to:-
Captain Robert Antony HARRISON-AUSTIN