Lieutenant Colonel Eric Charles Twelves Wilson VC (2 October 1912 – 23 December 2008) was an English

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 and colonial administrator. He received the

Victoria Cross The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...

, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. At the time of his death, he was last surviving British Army recipient of the Victoria Cross in the Second World War, and the earliest and oldest recipient.

Early life

Wilson was born at

Sandown Sandown is a seaside resort and civil parish on the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight, United Kingdom with the resort of Shanklin to the south and the settlement of Lake in between. Together with Shanklin, Sandown forms a built-up area of ...

on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...

, where his father Cyril Charles Clissold Wilson was a curate. His mother's maiden name was Twelves. His grandfather Charles Thomas Wilson was the first missionary from the Church Mission Society to visit Buganda, in 1877. He was educated at Marlborough College, where fees were reduced for the sons of clergymen, and he became a house captain. Although he wore glasses, he was awarded a prize cadetship to attend the

Royal Military College, Sandhurst The Royal Military College (RMC), founded in 1801 and established in 1802 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire, was a British Army military academy for training infant ...

Military career

Wilson was commissioned as a second lieutenant in The East Surrey Regiment on 2 February 1933. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1936 and was seconded to the 2nd (

Nyasaland Nyasaland () was a British protectorate located in Africa that was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Between 1953 and 1963, Nyasaland was part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasala ...

) Battalion The

King's African Rifles The King's African Rifles (KAR) was a multi-battalion British colonial regiment raised from Britain's various possessions in East Africa from 1902 until independence in the 1960s. It performed both military and internal security functions within ...

in 1937 serving in East Africa, where he learned to speak

Nyanja Chewa (also known as Nyanja, ) is a Bantu language spoken in much of Southern, Southeast and East Africa, namely the countries of Malawi , where it is an official language, and Mozambique and Zambia. The noun class prefix ''chi-'' is used for l ...

. He was then seconded to the

Somaliland Camel Corps The Somaliland Camel Corps (SCC) was a Rayid unit of the British Army based in British Somaliland. It lasted from the early 20th century until 1944. Beginnings and the Dervish rebellion In 1888, after signing successive treaties with the then r ...

in 1939. In August 1940, Wilson was 27 years old, and by then an acting captain attached to the Somaliland Camel Corps, when Italian forces commanded by General

Guglielmo Nasi Guglielmo Ciro Nasi (21 February 1879 – 21 September 1971) was an Italian general who fought in Italian East Africa during World War II. Biography Nasi was born in Civitavecchia, Latium. In 1912 he was sent to Libya as a Captain with the 8th ...

invaded British Somaliland (now Somaliland). During the

Italian conquest of British Somaliland The Italian invasion of British Somaliland (3–19 August 1940) was part of the East African campaign (1940–1941) in which Italian, Eritrean and Somali forces of Fascist Italy entered British Somaliland and defeated its combined garrison o ...

the heavily outnumbered British-led forces made their stand on the hills around Tug Argan. During this battle, from 11 to 15 August 1940 at Observation Hill, Captain Wilson kept a

Vickers Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public i ...

machine-gun A machine gun is a automatic firearm, fully automatic, rifling, rifled action (firearms)#Autoloading operation, autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as Automatic shotgun, a ...

post in action in spite of being wounded and suffering from

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...

. Some of his guns were blown to pieces by the enemy's field artillery fire, and his spectacles were smashed. He was wounded in the right shoulder and the left eye, and he was assumed to have been killed. For his actions, likened in the '' Daily Sketch'' to another

Rorke's Drift The Battle of Rorke's Drift (1879), also known as the Defence of Rorke's Drift, was an engagement in the Anglo-Zulu War. The successful British defence of the mission station of Rorke's Drift, under the command of Lieutenants John Chard of the ...

, Wilson was awarded the

. Wilson has the rare distinction of being mistakenly awarded a "

posthumous Posthumous may refer to: * Posthumous award - an award, prize or medal granted after the recipient's death * Posthumous publication – material published after the author's death * ''Posthumous'' (album), by Warne Marsh, 1987 * ''Posthumous'' ...

" VC, announced in ''

The London Gazette ''The London Gazette'' is one of the official journals of record or government gazettes of the Government of the United Kingdom, and the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, in which certain statutory notices are ...

'' on 16 October 1940. At the time the award was made, he was believed to be

missing in action Missing in action (MIA) is a casualty classification assigned to combatants, military chaplains, combat medics, and prisoners of war who are reported missing during wartime or ceasefire. They may have been killed, wounded, captured, ex ...

, presumed dead. He had, however, been captured by the Italians. An official report in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' on 16 October indicated that he had survived, but another captured officer was surprised to find the "late" Captain Wilson still alive in a

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...

camp in Eritrea. In 1941, when the Italian forces in East Africa surrendered following the East African Campaign, Wilson was released from captivity. He returned to England and received his Victoria Cross at Buckingham Palace in July 1942. With his captain's rank made permanent in 1941, and with the rank of temporary major, he served as adjutant of the

Long Range Desert Group The Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) was a reconnaissance and raiding unit of the British Army during the Second World War. Originally called the Long Range Patrol (LRP), the unit was founded in Egypt in June 1940 by Major Ralph Alger Bagnold, acti ...

and then as second in command of the 11th (Kenyan) King's African Rifles, part of the 25th East African Brigade in 11th East African Division, in the Burma Campaign. Having contracted

scrub typhus Scrub typhus or bush typhus is a form of typhus caused by the intracellular parasite '' Orientia tsutsugamushi'', a Gram-negative α-proteobacterium of family Rickettsiaceae first isolated and identified in 1930 in Japan.Jinja in Uganda. He was promoted to acting lieutenant-colonel in June 1945 and was seconded to The

Northern Rhodesia Regiment The Northern Rhodesia Regiment (NRR) was a multi-battalion British colonial regiment raised from the protectorate of Northern Rhodesia. It was formed in 1933 from elements of the Northern Rhodesia Police, which had been formed during Company ...

in 1946. He retired from the Army in 1949 and although at this time his permanent rank was major, he was granted the honorary rank of lieutenant-colonel.

Victoria Cross citation

The formal citation for Wilson's VC, published in the '' London Gazette'' in October 1940 when he was still presumed dead, reads:

Later life

Wilson married Ann Pleydell-Bouverie (a descendant of the Earls of Radnor) in 1943. They had two sons. After they divorced in 1953, Wilson married Angela Joy Gordon, and they had one son. After Wilson left the Army in 1949, he joined the Overseas Civil Service in Tanganyika. He learned several African languages, and served in Tanganyika until independence of the

British East Africa East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was an area in the African Great Lakes occupying roughly the same terrain as present-day Kenya from the Indian Ocean inland to the border with Uganda in the west. Controlled by Bri ...

n countries which led to his retirement in 1961. In 1962 Wilson was appointed Deputy Warden of London House, a residence at Goodenough Square in the Bloomsbury district of London. This residence is for university graduates from the

Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the ...

pursuing graduate studies in the United Kingdom. In 1966 Wilson was promoted to Warden of London House, holding the position until he retired in 1977, after which he lived in Stowell, Somerset. At the time of his death, he was one of only ten Victoria Cross recipients still alive. He was the last surviving British Army recipient of the Second World War, as well as being the earliest and oldest recipient. His VC is on display in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the Imperial War Museum, London. He suffered from prostate cancer in later life, and died after a stroke. He was buried in Stowell, survived by his second wife and their son, and both of his sons from his first marriage.

Footnotes

References

*'' British VCs of World War 2'' (John Laffin, 1997) *''

Monuments to Courage David Charles Harvey (29 July 1946 – 4 March 2004) was a historian and author. He is notable for his seminal work, ''Monuments To Courage'', which documents the graves of almost all recipients of the Victoria Cross, a task that took him over 3 ...

'' (David Harvey, 1999) *''

The Register of the Victoria Cross ''The Register of the Victoria Cross'' is a reference work that provides brief information on every Victoria Cross awarded until the publication date. Each entry provides a summary of the deed, along with a photograph of the recipient and the fo ...

'' (This England, 1997) * Roger T. Stearn
'Wilson, Eric Charles Twelves (1912–2008)"
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', (Oxford University Press, 2012) ccessed 5 Oct 2012

External links

British Army Officers 1939−1945
in ''The Art of War'' exhibition at the

UK National Archives , type = Non-ministerial department , seal = , nativename = , logo = Logo_of_The_National_Archives_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg , logo_width = 150px , logo_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , dissolved = , superseding = , juris ...

* * *
Imperial War Museum Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Eric Charles Twelves 1912 births 2008 deaths Burials in Somerset People from Sandown People educated at Marlborough College Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst East Surrey Regiment officers British Army personnel of World War II British colonial governors and administrators in Africa British World War II recipients of the Victoria Cross Somaliland Camel Corps officers King's African Rifles officers British Army recipients of the Victoria Cross Military history of British Somaliland during World War II Tanganyika (territory) people Missing in action of World War II British World War II prisoners of war Formerly missing people World War II prisoners of war held by Italy Military personnel from the Isle of Wight