Montagu Stopford
Sir Montagu George North Stopford GCB , KBE , DSO , MC (born November 16, 1892 in London - † March 10, 1971 ) was a British Army officer who served in both World Wars and achieved the rank of general .
Life
Stopford was born the elder of two sons of officer Lionel Arthur Montagu Stopford and his wife Mabel Georgina Emily, née Mackenzie. He was the grandson of the 19th century Vice Admiral Montagu Stopford . After an education at Wellington College and the Royal Military College Sandhurst , he was accepted as a Second Lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort's Own) in 1911 . After serving in British India , he came to the Western Front of the First World War with the 2nd Battalion in 1914 . In June 1916 he was appointed Captain General Staff Officer (GSO3) on the staff of the 56th (1st London) Division , which was used in the Battle of the Somme that same year . In December 1916, Stopford became Brigademajor (Chief of Staff) of the 167th (1st London) Brigade under this division . He ended the war with the rank of major and was awarded the Military Cross and Mentioned in dispatches .
In the interwar period , Stopford graduated from Staff College Camberley from 1923 to 1924 , where he worked as an instructor shortly before the start of World War II . During the western campaign and the retreat to Dunkirk in 1940, he commanded the 17th Infantry Brigade of the 5th Infantry Division and in January of the following year he became commander of the re-established 56th Infantry Division . In October 1941 he was appointed Commandant of Staff College and in November 1942 took over the leadership of the XII Corps in Great Britain. In the autumn of 1943 he was transferred to India, where he succeeded Philip Christison in command of the XXXIII Corps of the Indian Army . With this he led the relief efforts in the spring of 1944 at the Battle of Kohima , which was part of the Japanese Operation U-gō . This last Japanese offensive on the theater of war between Burma and India failed in June 1944. Stopford's corps also took part in the following operations to recapture Burma in 1944/45. At the end of May 1945, after the conquest of Rangoon , the 12th Army was reorganized from its headquarters , with which Stopford conducted the remaining operations of the war in Burma, while the 14th Army was deployed for the planned attack on the Malay Peninsula ( Operation Zipper ) has been. Stopford's army thwarted, among other things, the Japanese attempted breakout through the Pegu-Joma .
After the end of the war, Stopford commanded the Burma Command until early 1946 , before he succeeded Christison as Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces in the Dutch East Indies . In April 1946 he went to Singapore to take up the post of Commander-in-Chief, Allied Land Forces South East Asia (ALFSEA). After almost a year in this command, he returned to Great Britain, where he took over the Northern Command . Until his retirement in 1949, he was also the aide-de-camp of King George VI.
Stopford retired at Rock Hill House , Chipping Norton . He was from 1951 Colonel of Honor in the Rifle Brigade and from 1962 Deputy Lieutenant of Oxfordshire . He died in 1971 at the age of 78. Since 2008 a blue plaque on Rock Hill commemorates him.
Web links
- General Sir Montagu Stopford (1892–1971) on oxfordshireblueplaques.org.uk
- Entry on thepeerage.com
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stopford, Montagu |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Stopford, Montagu George North (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British general in World War II |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 16, 1892 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 10, 1971 |