Major, Durham Light Infantry
Born: Staff
Died: December 4th 1943
Age at Death: 27
Cause of death, Place, Date – died of wounds near Cassino, December 4th 1943
Tristan, the son of Sir Hamilton Ballance, an eminent surgeon, and his wife Lady Mercy (née Barrett), was born in Norwich on 21 April 1916. After being educated at Uppingham School and Brasenose College, Oxford, he joined Brighton College as a master, while continuing to play county cricket for Norfolk, as a strong batsman and excellent bowler. Ballance was a member of the school choir while he was a member of staff at the College and was involved in many of the school’s drama productions, including Ruddigore and Trial by Jury.
In 1940 he joined the 16th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry, fighting in North Africa, where he won the Military Cross in 1943 – becoming a real war hero four years after playing a war hero, Captain Dallas, VC, in Shivering Shocks, a play for boys performed at the College. His citation read:
By his leadership and example, he was able to keep his men firing and the enemy in check until all his ammunition was exhausted.
In September 1943 the Allies invaded the Italian mainland, and Ballance, known by his comrades as George, coped with his usual good humour. A letter to his sister from the front, both touching and amusing, records his sympathy for the plight of the deprived Italian populace and his regret at not receiving earlier letters from her. His comical explanation:
The other letters you speak of will probably catch me up in due course, but mail has been very bad recently. I think the weather has had something to do with it. We had notification the other day of a certain amount of outgoing mail that had got rain-sodden. I think the postman’s tent blew away, so that was the end of that one.
On 4 December he was killed in an attack on the heavily fortified Gustav Line and is buried at the Minturno War Cemetery.