Frank Messervy

Frank Messervy

Sir Frank Walter Messervy KCSI , KBE , CB , DSO & Bar, MC (born December 9, 1893 in Trinidad ; † February 2, 1974 in Heyshott , West Sussex ) was a British officer serving in the British Army and the British Indian Army served and reached the rank of general . He took part in both world wars and became the first commander in chief of the Pakistan Army after the partition of India in 1947 .

Life

Messervy was born the son of a bank manager and educated at Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst . He was inducted into the Indian Army as a Second Lieutenant in January 1913 , where he served in a British regiment for a year . In 1914 he came to the 9th Hodson Horse Cavalry Regiment , with whom he took part in the First World War in France , Palestine and Syria from 1914 to 1918 , where he achieved the rank of captain . After the war he served in Kurdistan .

From 1925 to 1926 Messervy attended the course at Staff College Camberley , was promoted to brigade major in 1928 and promoted to full major in 1931 . From 1932 to 1936 he taught at Indian Staff College in Quetta , where Bernard Montgomery was one of his colleagues. In 1938, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he became commander of the 13th Duke of Connaught's Own Lancers , which was then converted from a cavalry regiment to reconnaissance tanks and was used on the North West Frontier . In September 1939 he was transferred to the Deccan District to participate in the formation of the Indian 5th Infantry Division as General Staff Officer 1st Degree (GSO1) with the rank of Colonel . The Division was established in September 1940 in the Sudan relocated to the East African Campaign against the Italian colony of Italian East Africa participate.

After his arrival in Sudan on October 16, 1940, Messervy was entrusted with the leadership of a provisional combined task force in the strength of a reinforced battalion , the Gazelle Force , which had the task of attacking the Italian troops on the border with Eritrea and keeping them busy. After the successful invasion of Eritrea, the association was dissolved in February 1941. In early March 1941, Messervy was instead given command of the 9th Infantry Brigade of the 5th Division, with which he took part in the Battle of Keren , which lasted until the end of March . For his successful leadership of the brigade in East Africa, he was to receive the Distinguished Service Order in December 1941 and was Mentioned in dispatches . Previously, on April 14, 1941, he had received command of the Indian 4th Infantry Division with the temporary rank of Major-General , which was transferred to the front in North Africa after the end of the Battle of Keren .

Messervy in the Gazala position

Messervy led the 4th Division in Operation Battleaxe in June 1941 , a (second) failed attempt by the British to lift the siege of Tobruk . This goal was not achieved until the end of November 1941 as part of Operation Crusader . Messervy's division then took part in the pursuit of the German-Italian troops and reached Benghazi by the end of the year . Messervy was originally supposed to take over the Indian 1st Armored Division (later 31st Armored Division ), which was stationed in Iran and Iraq, after the operation was completed. After Herbert Lumsden was wounded , he was given command of the British 1st Armored Division on January 3, 1942 , which he led until mid-February 1942. During this time she was involved in fighting in the Msus area . After a short stay in India, where his daughter was in hospital, on February 28th he was put in charge of the 7th Armored Division , the famous Desert Rats , which had recently lost its commander Jock Campbell in an accident.

Messervy was with the 7th Armored Division in May 1942 in the defense of the Theseus company when his divisional headquarters was overrun by units of the German Africa Corps on May 27th . Messervy tore off his badges of rank and pretended to be just an officer 's lad when he was captured by the Germans. A short time later he managed to escape when a British battery fired at the vehicle that was supposed to bring him behind the German lines. With some of his fellow prisoners, he reached their own lines under cover of night. Messervy returned to command of the remnants of the 7th Armored Division, but was relieved of his post on June 19 by General Neil Ritchie . He was transferred to Cairo , where he was Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the British Middle East Command under Claude Auchinleck . In September 1942 he was awarded the Companion of the Order of the Bath for his services in North Africa .

In October 1942 Messervy was transferred back to India, where he was responsible for armored vehicles at the GHQ in Delhi and was charged with setting up the Indian 43rd Armored Division . Originally intended for use in Iran, this division was disbanded after the German threat from the Caucasus as a result of the Battle of Stalingrad in April 1943. On July 30, 1943, Messervy, who had meanwhile reached the substantial rank of Major-General, was given command of the Indian 7th Infantry Division . This division was used in 1943/44 as part of the Indian XV Corps in the attack on the coastal province of Arakan during the Burma campaign. Although his division headquarters from a counter-attack in February 1944 Japanese ( operation Ha-Go was overrun), he succeeded in the Battle of the Admin Box ( Battle of the Admin Box ), were provided in its forces from the air, an important Defensive success, for which he was later awarded his second DSO. His division was then relieved in Arakan to be relocated to the border region at Imphal and Kohima , where the Japanese had started their main offensive ( Operation U-Go ) in March 1944 . In these fights, in which the Japanese were eventually pushed back, Messervy distinguished himself again. From July to October 1944, he and his division received a much-needed break.

At the beginning of October 1944, Messervy was called to the headquarters of General William Slim , the commander of the Fourteenth Army , who announced to him that he would be given the command of the British IV Corps for the planned operations into the interior of Burma ( Operation Capital ). He took up his new post as the successor to Geoffrey Scoones on December 8th. His troops advanced through the Gangaw Valley and at the beginning of March 1945 captured the centrally located Meiktila , which they successfully defended against Japanese counterattacks, and a little later also the former capital Mandalay , which gave the operation its name. In April 1945, the corps advanced over 300 kilometers through the Sittaung valley to the south to the capital, Rangoon , which was finally captured in early May as part of the Dracula sea ​​and air landing operation . At the beginning of July 1945 Messervy was accepted into the Order of the British Empire for his services as Knight Commander and was henceforth allowed to call himself Sir Frank .

After the surrender of Japan and a home leave, Messervy became General Officer Commanding of the Malaya Command in December 1945 , which he remained until October 1946. He then became Commander in Chief of the Indian Northern Command . In this position he was awarded the Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India on June 12, 1947 . On August 15, 1947, the partition of India came into force, with the Northern Command becoming the headquarters of the Pakistan Army . Messervy became the first commander in chief of the army in the newly formed Dominion Pakistan with the honorary rank of general . On February 10, 1948, during the First Indo-Pakistani War , he handed over his post to his successor Douglas Gracey and retired from active service in August of that year. His post as regimental commander of the 16th Light Cavalry of the Indian Army , he gave up, but remained until 1955 regimental commander of the Jat Regiment .

Messervy then retired with his family to the Wiltshire Farm in Wokingham , Berkshire. The family later moved to Heyshott near Midhurst in West Sussex, where he died in 1974 at the age of 80.

literature

• Henry Maule: Spearhead General: The Epic Story of General Sir Frank Messervy and his Men in Eritrea, North Africa and Burma. Oldhams Press, London 1961.
• Richard Mead: Churchill's Lions: A biographical guide to the key British generals of World War II. Spellmount, Stroud 2007, ISBN 978-1-86227-431-0 .

Web links

Commons : Frank Walter Messervy  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• CV on britishmilitaryhistory.co.uk (PDF; 650 kB)

predecessor	Office	successor
Office newly created	Commander in Chief of the Pakistan Army 1947–1948	Douglas Gracey