Oliver Leese

Lieutenant General Sir Oliver William Hargreaves Leese, 3rd Baronet, (27 October 1894 – 22 January 1978) was a senior British Army officer who saw distinguished active service during both the world wars.

Oliver William Hargreaves Leese was born on 27 October 1894 at St. Ermin's, Westminster, London, the first of four children of William Hargreaves Leese (later 2nd Baronet), a barrister, and Violet Mary Sandeman.

He was educated at Ludgrove and Eton.

In 1909, while at Eton, he joined the Officers' Training Corps (OTC).

Early in the First World War, he joined the British Army and was gazetted in the Special Reserve of Officers as a second lieutenant into the Coldstream Guards on 15 September 1914, later gazetted in the Land Forces on 15 May 1915.

Despite receiving only five weeks of training, Leese was sent to France in mid-October 1914 and was posted to the 3rd Battalion, Coldstream Guards, part of the 4th (Guards) Brigade of the 2nd Division, near Ypres, Belgium.

However, on 20 October, a week before Leese's 20th birthday, he was wounded, the first of three woundings he was to receive during the war, after being hit in the back by shrapnel.

He returned to England for treatment, and in 1915 returned to France, serving this time with the 2nd Battalion, Coldstream Guards, also part of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Division, where he experienced trench warfare throughout most of the year, in July suffered a second wounding, receiving multiple wounds to the face, but he remained on duty.

In September his battalion, now transferred to the 1st Guards Brigade of the newly created Guards Division, fought in the Battle of Loos and, on 3 October, Leese was promoted to lieutenant.

The next few months were spent holding the trenches, with no major engagements taking place.

Leese was wounded for the third time during the Somme offensive in September 1916, an action in which he was mentioned in despatches and awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO).

The citation to his DSO, which was gazetted in November 1916, read:"For conspicuous gallantry in action. He led the assault against a strongly held part of the enemy's line, which was stopping the whole attack. He personally accounted for many of the enemy and enabled the attack to proceed. He was wounded during the fight."

After the war, he remained in the British Army, being promoted captain in 1921, and attending the Staff College, Camberley from 1927 to 1928.

Returning briefly to his battalion after graduation, in November 1929 he was appointed as brigade major to the 1st Infantry Brigade (Guards) and was formally promoted to major a few days later.

A few weeks after his return to the United Kingdom, and after relinquishing his acting rank of major general, Leese was ordered to form and train a large brigade group, the 29th Infantry Brigade.

The brigade was composed of four, instead of the usual three, battalions that had just returned from India, along with various supporting units such as artillery and engineers.

From 1932 to 1938 Leese held a number of staff appointments and was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in December 1936, brevet-colonel in September 1938 and colonel in October 1938.

He was promoted to brevet lieutenant-colonel in July 1933.

On 18 January 1933 Leese married a granddaughter of Sir Baldwyn Leighton, 8th Baronet, Margaret Alice (died 1964), daughter of Cuthbert Leighton (recte Leicester-Warren), DL, JP, (1877–1954), of Tabley House, Knutsford, by Hilda Margaret Davenport; they had no children.

Lady Leese's brother was the last of the line to own the Tabley estate which upon his death was eventually taken over by The University of Manchester.

He had succeeded to the baronetcy on his father's death on 17 January 1937.

The Second World War started while Leese was still in India, as the Chief Instructor at the Staff College, Quetta.

Each course usually lasted two years but had been reduced to a single year due to the outbreak of the war, with plans made to reduce it to five months to enable more staff officers to be produced in the rapidly expanding British and British-Indian armies.

Despite this, and the fact that Leese was selected as a possible Commandant of the college, he was anxious to return to Europe where the fighting was sure to be.

In September 1938 he was posted to India to be a GSO1 instructor at the Staff College, Quetta.

His wish was granted in March 1940 and he returned to England at the end of that month.

Shortly after his arrival, he assumed command of the hastily-raised 20th Independent Infantry Brigade (Guards), which was to participate in the ultimately doomed Norwegian campaign although this did not happen.

Due to the German Army's invasion of Western Europe, which began on 10 May, Leese received a signal ordering him to France and to report to General Lord Gort, Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the British Expeditionary Force.

He was assigned to act as Lieutenant General Henry Pownall's Deputy Chief of Staff.

Leese arrived at the BEF's General Headquarters (GHQ), then at Arras, on the evening of the German assault.

On 11 May, he was promoted to the acting rank of major general, after having been promoted to the acting rank of brigadier just nine days earlier.

Four days after his arrival, he established an Advanced Headquarters at Renaix in order to be closer to the BEF, now stationed on the Dyle Line.

Over the following days, the BEF began retreating to a series of river lines and Gort's GHQ was moved to Wahagnies.

By 18 May, with the situation becoming worse by the day, Leese prepared an emergency plan for the BEF to retreat to Dunkirk, although it was politically impossible to go through with the plan at that time.

Events moved rapidly and GHQ relocated several times, eventually arriving at Last Panne, Belgium, within the Dunkirk perimeter, on 26 May.

Over the next few days, the staff worked frantically to oversee the withdrawal and evacuation of the BEF back to the United Kingdom, following largely the same plan that Leese had designed.

He himself was evacuated on 31 May.

Throughout the campaign, Leese was "a model of cool, unruffled fortitude during the retreat to Dunkirk" and who "more than anyone, imposed some order on the BEF's withdrawal and evacuation" while booming with confidence.

On 30 December 1940, he was again promoted to the acting rank of major general and given command of the West Sussex County Division that also included the 29th Brigade.

He commanded XXX Corps in North Africa and Sicily, serving under General Sir Bernard Montgomery, before going on to command the Eighth Army in the Italian Campaign throughout most of 1944.