Alfred Gardyne de Chastelain

Alfred George Gardyne de Chastelain
Alfred Gardyne de Chastelain in 1945
Born	February 1906 London, UK
Died	1974 Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	World War II
Rank	Lieutenant-Colonel
Unit	Artists' Rifles, Special Operations Executive
Awards	DSO, OBE

Alfred George Gardyne de Chastelain, DSO, OBE (1906–1974) was a British-Canadian businessman, soldier, and secret agent, noted for his actions during World War II. He was the father of Canadian General John de Chastelain.

Born in London in February 1906, of Anglo-Scottish parents and of Huguenot background, he was educated in Scotland and the University of London, from which he received a First Class degree in Engineering. On graduation, he moved to Romania and worked for Unirea (a British Petroleum branch) in Bucharest, rising to a managerial position towards the end of the 1930s. While in Bucharest, he married Marion Elizabeth Walsh, the daughter of Jack Walsh, an American accountant with Standard Oil of New Jersey in Romania.

On the outbreak of war with Nazi Germany, de Chastelain was commissioned into the Artists' Rifles and became a member of Special Operations Executive (SOE), with which organisation he conducted sabotage operations in the Balkans and served in the North African campaign.

In late 1943, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, he led a team of two other SOE members (Ivor Porter and Silviu Meţianu) by parachute into Romania (Operation Autonomous), to test the possibility of the country's surrender to the Allies as the Axis was losing battles on the Eastern Front (see Romania during World War II). Captured by the Romanian Gendarmerie soon after their landing near Plosca, Teleorman County, he and his team were taken into custody as prisoners of war and held in a Bucharest apartment.