Oliver Leese

Leese returned to England from India in March 1940, six months after the outbreak of the Second World War. It had been planned for him to command a brigade in Norway but with the German Army's invasion of Western Europe in May, he was sent to join General Lord Gort's headquarters as Deputy Chief of Staff of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). He evacuated from Dunkirk with Gort on 31 May.[26]

On his return to the United Kingdom Leese was ordered to form and train a large brigade group, the 29th Infantry Brigade. In December 1940 he was appointed acting major general[27] and given command of the West Sussex County Division, which included the 29th Brigade.[26] A month later he was moved to become General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division, then stationed in East Anglia.[26] His rank was upgraded to temporary major general in November[28] and was made substantive in December.[29] In June 1941 he became GOC of the newly created Guards Armoured Division during its formation and training. "A forceful personality, Leese proved extremely energetic in getting what he wanted from the War Office and then drove his men hard to create a thoroughly well organised division within a relatively short time".[30]

Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery pictured in North Africa sometime in late 1942 with his three corps commanders, from left to right: Lieutenant General Sir Oliver Leese, GOC XXX Corps, Lieutenant General Herbert Lumsden, GOC X Corps, Lieutenant General Montgomery, Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks, GOC XIII Corps

In September 1942 he was sent at the request of the British Eighth Army commander, Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery, to North Africa to assume command, as an acting lieutenant general,[31] of the Eighth Army's XXX Corps.[30] Montgomery had formed a good opinion of Leese when he had instructed him at the Staff College, Camberley in 1927 and 1928 and had also been impressed by his work at GHQ in France.[26] Leese commanded XXX Corps for the rest of the campaign which ended with the Axis surrender in May 1943 in Tunisia. He was mentioned in despatches for his services in North Africa.[32] XXX Corps then took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 before returning to the United Kingdom after the Sicily campaign, which ended in August, to prepare for the planned invasion of Northwest Europe, scheduled for the spring of 1944.[33] Leese was promoted to temporary lieutenant general in September.[34]

The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, with military leaders during his visit to Tripoli, February 1943. The group includes: Lieutenant General Sir Oliver Leese, General Sir Harold Alexander, General Sir Alan Brooke and General Sir Bernard Montgomery.

Leese receiving his knighthood in the field from King George VI on 26 July 1944

On 24 December 1943, however, Leese received a telegram ordering him to Italy to succeed Montgomery as Eighth Army commander as Montgomery was to return to the United Kingdom in January 1944 to prepare for the Allied invasion of Normandy.[33] Leese commanded the Eighth Army at the fourth and final battle of Monte Cassino in May 1944 (when the bulk of the Eighth Army was switched in secret from the Adriatic coast to Cassino to strike a joint blow with the U.S. Fifth Army under Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, who Leese disliked working alongside) and for Operation Olive on the Gothic Line later in 1944. His rank of lieutenant general was made permanent in July 1944.[35]

General Sir Harold Alexander (right), with Lieutenant General Sir Oliver Leese and Lieutenant General Sir John Harding, inspect one of the German Panther tank turrets which formed part of the Gothic Line defences, September 1944.

In September 1944 he was appointed to succeed George Giffard as the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of Eleventh Army Group and assumed command in November, by which time the Army Group had been renamed Allied Land Forces, South-East Asia (ALFSEA).[36] Leese was replaced as commander of the British Eighth Army by Lieutenant General Sir Richard McCreery. Leese viewed the existing command structure in South-East Asia as inefficient, and proceeded to appoint former members of his Eighth Army staff. The methods of the two staffs differed and the newcomers were resented. As Slim expressed it in his memoirs, "His staff, which he brought with him... had a good deal of desert sand in its shoes, and was rather inclined to thrust Eighth Army down our throats."[37] Leese commanded three groups: the Northern Combat Area Command under his American subordinate, Lieutenant General Dan Sultan, the Fourteenth Army under Lieutenant General Sir William Slim in central Burma and further south in the Arakan, Indian XV Corps under Lieutenant General Philip Christison, his Staff College classmate. Until the end of the year, he fought a successful campaign which led to the capture of Rangoon by an amphibious landing (Operation Dracula) in early May 1945.[38]

Major General Thomas Rees, GOC 19th Indian Infantry Division, talking with Lieutenant General Sir Oliver Leese in Mandalay, 19 March 1945

Slim had turned the Fourteenth Army into an effective military force and had commanded a highly successful campaign from the relief of Imphal to the recapture of Rangoon and the destruction of the Japanese forces in Burma. Leese believed that Slim was very tired (he had asked for leave once Rangoon had been taken) and proposed to the Supreme Commander South East Asia, Louis Mountbatten and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, that he should be replaced by Philip Christison, who had experience in amphibious warfare and so would be well suited to leading the army in the planned seaborne landings in Malaya, leaving Slim to take over the new Twelfth Army, with the less demanding task of mopping up in Burma.[39] Leese misread the reactions of Brooke and Mountbatten and having then met Slim to discuss the proposals, came away believing Slim had agreed to them.[40] In fact, Slim reacted by telling his staff he had been sacked and wrote to Leese and General Sir Claude Auchinleck, the Commander-in-Chief India, to say he would refuse the new post and resign from the army in protest.[40] Once the news circulated within the Fourteenth Army, mutinies and mass resignations of officers were threatened. Leese was obliged to reinstate Slim when Mountbatten refused to support him, even though he had authorised the original proposals. Mountbatten subsequently approached Alan Brooke (who had always doubted Leese's suitability for the role) and they agreed that Leese should be removed. He was succeeded by Slim.[40]