Derek was born in Cheltenham and attended CGS from1933 – 1941 where he excelled. Copies of the old school magazine, The Patesian, record that he held a multitude of roles and responsibilities in the Sixth Form: School Prefect 1938-1939; School Vice-Captain 1939-1940; Baker House Secretary 1939-1940; Editor of The Patesian 1938-39-40-41; Chair of the Literary and Debating Society 1938-39; Captain 2nd XV 1937-38; Rugby Colours 1939-1940; Captain of 1st XV 1940; Life Saving Award of Merit 1940; School Captain 1940-1941; Baker House Captain 1941. He was also second-in-command of the School Home Guard (the C.O being the Headmaster), taking responsibility for running Lewis gun classes for boys not yet seventeen and it’s noted that he gave a lecture on German Tactics and their development.

Following on from receiving his Higher School Certificate (Distinction in French and German) in 1940, he was awarded a Minor Open Scholarship to read Modern Languages at Christ's College, Cambridge. It was reported in the 1942 edition of The Patesian that he ‘has indulged in a little rugby and squash’. After one year he was commissioned as an officer in the Dorset Regiment.

On 30th April, 1945, the 22-year-old Captain Knee heard on German radio news that Hitler had committed suicide and Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz had been named as his successor. On the evening of 2nd May, Knee was told that Dönitz was seeking an armistice and that a German delegation wished to come through the Allied lines.

A German-speaking officer was needed and the following day Knee, now an Intelligence Officer, was sent to Field Marshal Montgomery’s 21st Army Group Tactical HQ on Lüneburg Heath where a German delegation arrived with a letter from Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel which Knee translated for Montgomery. He reported that the delegation did not have the authority to agree to the unconditional surrender terms stipulated by Montgomery and the Germans were directed to return with the necessary authorisation the next day.

On 4th May, they returned with another delegate and signed the surrender document witnessed by war correspondents, and this set off a chain of events culminating in Victory in Europe Day on 8th May, 1945.

The picture is a print of an oil painting by Terence Cuneo titled “The German surrender at Lüneburg Heath, May 1945”. The man standing behind Montgomery is Derek Knee. The print is in the School Archives alongside the WW2 Roll of Honour Memorial Book.

Derek Knee died in 2014 aged 91.