A COLONEL who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his role in sinking German ships near La Rochelle and devised landing assault crafts with his great friend Blondie Hasler has died, aged 98.

John Coke, known to everyone as Johnnie, spent many years working at accountants Fletcher & Partners in Salisbury while living in Fordingbridge.

One of four children, he was born in Exeter and brought up in Cheltenham.

In 1935, he joined the Royal Marines who at that time served on ships, manning the guns, and saw action while escorting convoys to Norway. He served in North Africa and Sicily in 1943 and was on board HMS Mauritius at the Normandy landings.

After the war, he had postings in HMS Superb and HMS Vanguard, the latter in which he was appointed Captain of Marines for the Royal Tour of South Africa in 1949 of George VI and his family.

Highlights included organising an audience for the ship’s company with Pope Pius XII, a tour of the Mediterranean and of the Middle East. He was always proud to have danced with the then Princess Elizabeth.

In 1951 he joined the Rhine Squadron and in 1954 he joined 40 Commando.

From 1960-2 he was military attaché in Washington DC and ended his career as Commanding Officer of the Royal Marines Depot in Deal 1963-6 and Commandant of the Royal Marines’ School of Music.

He enjoyed being involved in youth projects and continued playing rugby for the Royal Marines and Home Fleet after the war, as well as cricket.

In 1965 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Passionate about skiing, he was secretary of the Ski Club of Great Britain from 1966-9. He moved to the New Forest when offered a job by an old friend running his golf club in Bramshaw and from 1975 to 1988, worked at Fletcher & Partners.

In Fordingbridge, he was involved in the Catholic Church as Reader, Treasurer and their first Eucharistic Minister among other roles.

In his retirement he pursued further studies in philosophy having regretted that he had never had the chance to go to university.

He took great pleasure in gardening and his family, and was a keen bridge player as well as an enormous Trollope fan.

Described as a life-long bon vivant, he died on September 4 and is survived by his wife Jill, two children Robert and Nicholas, and six grandchildren.