Walter Walker (British Army officer)

General Sir Walter Colyear Walker, (11 November 1912 – 12 August 2001) was a senior British Army officer who served as Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces Northern Europe from 1969 until his retirement in 1972.

He commanded the 4/8th Gurkhas Rifles against the Japanese Army in Burma during the Second World War.

Walker then went to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and in 1933 after a short attachment to the Sherwood Foresters he joined the 1/8th Gurkha Rifles in Quetta which his grandfather had formerly commanded.

In 1935 he survived the major earthquake that hit that city.

The battalion moved to Assam in the aftermath where it remained until early 1939, Walker was appointed the battalion's adjutant in 1938.

In 1939, Walker moved with his battalion across India to Razmak, on the North West Frontier facing Waziristan, there had been turmoil on the Frontier since 1936, and operations were continuous, a mixture of defensive and offensive operations, some of them "punitive operations" against tribesman of the North West Frontier in India.

Walker distinguished himself and was recommended for the Military Cross, he had come to senior officers' attention and was appointed staff captain at the Razmak Brigade headquarters.

His attention to detail enabled him to excel in this role.

He was twice mentioned in dispatches for his role in the operations on the North West Frontier from 1939 to 1941.

In 1942, Walker was selected to attend the Staff College at Quetta.

After this he was appointed General Staff Officer Grade 3 (GSO 3) on the staff of Lieutenant General Slim's Burma Corps, joining them near the oil fields at Yenangyaung in mid April 1942.

Walker remained with the HQ as it walked back to India, and was then appointed as an instructor at the Quetta staff college.

In early 1944, Walker was appointed second-in-command, alongside a new commanding officer, of the 4/8th Gurkha Rifles, who had suffered severely in the Arakan Campaign.

In March the battalion was moved to the Imphal area where the Japanese had launched a major offensive and spent several months in hard fighting.

In November he became the commanding officer, instigated a tough training regime and the battalion's motto – "Live Hard, Fight Hard, and when necessary Die Hard".

Always a disciplinarian, he was a hard taskmaster and a totally professional soldier dedicated to hard training, and with his harsher characteristics balanced by integrity, generosity and warmth.

In early 1945 he led the 4/8th Gurkhas, part of IV Corps, across the River Irrawaddy and hard fighting against the main body of the Japanese Army in Burma.

In June he was appointed GSO 1 in his division's (7 Indian Division) Headquarters, although circumstances dictated that he had to return part-time to 4/8th Gurkhas as their commanding officer again.

A highly unusual situation.

He was mentioned in dispatches and at the end of the war he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and 7th Indian Infantry Division moved to occupy Thailand where Walker was involved in negotiating the surrender of Japanese forces in that country.

Walker's first post-war posting was as GSO 1 to the Director of Military Operations in General Headquarters (GHQ), Delhi.

When GHQ was transferred to Indian control in 1948 he handed over to a future Indian Chief of Army Staff and was appointed GSO 1 in Malaya District Headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

In 1948, the Emergency was declared in Malaya.

Walker's immediate role was to train and equip the irregular Ferret Force.

In late 1948 he was appointed commandant of the Far East Land Forces Training Centre in Johore Bahru with the task of training British units, arriving from UK, in jungle fighting.

It later became the Jungle Warfare School at Kota Tinggi.

He was appointed OBE for his work on Jungle warfare training.

He also highlighted the many deficiencies in equipment and neglect of the lessons learned in Burma.

He then had his first posting to UK as a student at the Joint Services Staff College.

He commanded the 1/6 Gurkha Rifles from 1950 to 1953 and he commanded the 99th Gurkha Infantry Brigade Group from 1957 to 1959 during the Malayan Emergency.

In 1950 he was appointed to command 1/6 Gurkha Rifles.

Walker created a very effective jungle fighting battalion with many notable successes, including killing high ranking communists, in the three years he was in command.

He was awarded a Bar to his DSO and was twice mentioned in dispatches during the Malayan Emergency.

In 1954 he returned to the UK as a senior (Colonel) staff officer in Headquarters Eastern Command where he was involved in planning and mounting the Suez operation in 1956.

Walker was Director of Operations in Borneo from 1962 to 1965 during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation.

In retirement, he attracted some controversy by publicising his views on the political situation in Britain during the mid-1970s.

Walker was born on a tea plantation in British India to a military family, one of four sons.

At the end of the First World War Walker and his family moved back to Britain and he was sent to Blundell's School in Devon.

Even as a child Walker had a militaristic streak; in his memoirs Fighting On he writes that he ordered the previously "idle, unpatriotic, unkempt" pupils into "showing the school what smartness on the parade ground meant".

His teachers became alarmed at Walker's strict behaviour and tried to explain the difference between "driving" and "leading".