Herbert Lumsden

Lumsden in September 1942

Herbert Lumsden CB , DSO & Bar, MC (born April 8, 1897 in Clanfield , Oxfordshire ; † January 6, 1945 in the Gulf of Lingayen ) was a British Army officer, most recently a lieutenant general . During World War II division and corps commander in North Africa, he was transferred to the Pacific in 1943 and fell as the highest ranking British officer in the war on landing in the Gulf of Lingayen .

Life

Lumsden was born to John Lumsden and raised at Leys School in Cambridge and Eton College . Before joining the Royal Military College Sandhurst , he served in the Territorial Army . He was an officer in the in November 1916 Royal Horse Artillery received and won the First World War as an artillery observer, the Military Cross .

After the war he moved to the 12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales's) in 1925 . An excellent rider, he took part in several Grand Nationals in the 1920s . From 1929 to 1930 he attended Staff College Camberley . He was early 1932 General Staff Officer Grade 3 (GSO3) at Aldershot Command , later Brigade Major in the stationed there 1st Cavalry Division . After a short period of service as GSO2 at Staff College, he took over as commander of the 12th Royal Lancers in the summer of 1938 , which were then in the process of converting horses to light armored vehicles of the Morris CS9 type .

Lumsden (2nd from left) with Generals Leese , Montgomery and Horrocks in North Africa, 1942

During World War II, Lumsden took part in the retreat to Dunkirk in 1940 and won his first DSO for this. In June 1940 he was given command of the 3rd Motor Machine Gun Brigade in Great Britain , from which the 28th Armored Brigade emerged in December . In November 1941 he was appointed commander of the 1st Armored Division and moved with this to Egypt. He was wounded twice in the fighting in the African campaign and was briefly out of command. In August 1942, after the First Battle of El Alamein , he received the repeat clasp for his DSO. In the same month he took over the X Corps , which served as the armored reserve of Bernard Montgomery's 8th Army in the Second Battle of El Alamein . In December 1942, Montgomery, who was not convinced of his achievements, replaced him with Brian Horrocks .

Lumsden returned to the mother country, where he was in command of the VIII Corps for half a year . In late 1943, Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent him to the Southwest Pacific Area as a liaison officer , where the American Douglas MacArthur was in command. On January 6, 1945, while aboard the USS New Mexico , he was watching the bombardment of the landing beaches in the Gulf of Lingayen when a Japanese kamikaze machine hit the ship's bridge. General Lumsden was among the 30 people killed. He was buried at sea.

literature

• Correlli Barnett: The Desert Generals. Hachette UK, 2011.
• Richard Doherty: British Armored Divisions and their Commanders, 1939-1945. Pen & Sword, 2013.
• Richard Mead: The Men Behind Monty. Pen & Sword, 2015.

Web links

Commons : Herbert Lumsden  - Collection of images, videos and audio files