Werner Heubeck

Werner Wolfgang Heubeck (24 October 1923 – 19 October 2009) was a German–British transport executive who was managing director of the Northern Ireland transport companies Ulsterbus and Citybus.

Early life and military service Heubeck was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1923, the son of an engineer in the city's gas works. In 1942, aged 19, he was a member of the Hitler Youth, and was conscripted into the Luftwaffe as a soldier and engineer in the Hermann Göring division. He was initially posted to anti-invasion duties in western France, then moved to Italy, before being assigned to the Afrika Korps in the last stages of the North African Campaign. The transport ships carrying Heubeck to Africa were attacked by air and sunk from the African coast. Heubeck swam to Cap Bon, also managing to rescue some of his colleagues, of whom 60 of 550 survived the attack.

Post-World War II Captured shortly after reaching Tunisia, Heubeck was sent to the United States on the last prisoner of war convoy to a POW camp at Fort Polk, Louisiana. He was repatriated in 1946, and returned to Nuremberg to rebuild his family home. After a brief period working for the United States Army, Heubeck obtained work as a translator and proof-reader at the Nuremberg Trials held in his home town. It was at the Nuremberg Trials that Heubeck met his future wife, Monica, a Welsh translator who had worked at Bletchley Park during the war. Despite Heubeck's German heritage and military service, he and Monica gained permission to marry and settle in the UK, which they did in 1949. Initially settling in London, Heubeck was offered work by London Transport as a station worker on the Underground, but as he did not want to spend all day beneath the ground he and his wife instead relocated to her native Wales, where he got a job as a factory labourer at the British Nylon Spinners works in Pontypool. Heubeck was naturalised as a British citizen in 1954, at the time he was described as a "Development Assistant" and was living in Govilon, near Abergavenny.

Ulsterbus and Citybus By 1957, Heubeck was working as a manager for Alex Pirie & Sons, a paper mill in Aberdeen. In 1965, he noticed an advertisement for the position of managing director for buses in Northern Ireland, and successfully applied for the job, preparing for the interview by taking a day trip to Ulster and speaking to the bus manager in Aberdeen. In the Birthday Honours of 1988, the year of his retirement from Ulsterbus, he was promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).