Lt Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

Cyril Bencraft Joly MC (9 September 1918 – 2000) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

officer who served with 7th Armoured Division (

Desert Rats The 7th Armoured Division was an armoured division of the British Army that saw distinguished active service during the Second World War, where its exploits in the Western Desert Campaign gained it the ''Desert Rats'' nickname. After the Muni ...

) throughout the campaign in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He described his experiences as a tank commander in the

2nd Royal Tank Regiment The 2nd Royal Tank Regiment (2 RTR) was an armoured regiment of the British Army. It was part of the Royal Tank Regiment, itself part of the Royal Armoured Corps and the 1st Mechanized Brigade. History Founded as B Battalion, Tank Corps in 1917 ...

(2 RTR) in ''Take These Men'' (1955), a (lightly fictionalised) personal narrative of the Western Desert campaign that is regarded as a classic of its kind.

Life

He was born in Mengtes,

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and died at

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

. Later in life he invented and patented an apparatus for providing a desired atmosphere in a sleeping space. It consisted of a frame for a bed with electrical fans to control the temperature. In his later days he lived at

Tregatillian Tregatillian is a hamlet immediately east of St. Columb Major in Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of t ...

near St Columb Major in Cornwall

Family

Henry Bencraft Joly (1857-1898; his grandfather) was British Vice-Consul in

Macao Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

and translator of Ts'ao Chan's '' Hung Lou Meng: The Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel in Two Books''. He had three brothers. His only daughter, Vivien, married Hugh David Beddington, son of Keith Lionel Beddington CBE.The Times, Wednesday, 24 June 1964; p. 14; Issue 56046; col C

Works

*1955 ''Take These Men'' (London, Constable and Company Ltd; reprinted Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1956; London, Buchan & Enright, 1985) *1980 ''Silent Night: the defeat of NATO'' . London: Cassell ** ''Operation Stille Nacht''

References

1918 births 2000 deaths Recipients of the Military Cross British Army personnel of World War II Royal Tank Regiment officers 20th-century British inventors {{UK-army-bio-stub