George Forty (10 September 1927 – 19 May 2016) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

officer who was chief of staff of the

Royal Armoured Corps The Royal Armoured Corps is the armoured arm of the British Army, that together with the Household Cavalry provides its armour capability, with vehicles such as the Challenger 2 and the Warrior tracked armoured vehicle. It includes most of the Ar ...

gunnery school and later director of

the Tank Museum The Tank Museum (previously the Bovington Tank Museum) is a collection of armoured fighting vehicles at Bovington Camp in Dorset, South West England. It is about north of the village of Wool and west of the major port of Poole. The collectio ...

, and also author of many books on warfare.

Education and military career

Forty was born in London and educated at Ashville College and at Queen's College,

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

. He joined the British Army in 1945, and was part of the first post-war class commissioned from the

Royal Military Academy Sandhurst The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS or RMA Sandhurst), commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is one of several military academy, military academies of the United Kingdom and is the British Army's initial Commissioned officer, officer train ...

in 1948. He served in the

British Army of the Rhine British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) was the name given to British Army occupation forces in the Rhineland, West Germany, after the First and Second World Wars, and during the Cold War, becoming part of NATO's Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) tasked ...

in the

1st Royal Tank Regiment The 1st Royal Tank Regiment (1 RTR) was an armoured regiment of the British Army. It is part of the Royal Tank Regiment, itself part of the Royal Armoured Corps and operationally under 12th Armoured Infantry Brigade. History Formation The regimen ...

, in Korea, where he was wounded in the Third Battle of the Hook in May 1953, and in

Aden Aden () is a port city located in Yemen in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula, on the north coast of the Gulf of Aden, positioned near the eastern approach to the Red Sea. It is situated approximately 170 km (110 mi) east of ...

, the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

and

Borneo Borneo () is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world, with an area of , and population of 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Situated at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, it is one of the Greater Sunda ...

in command of an armoured reconnaissance squadron. After attending the Staff College in 1959, he held appointments at the Army Air Corps Centre and the Royal Armoured Corps Tactical, Signals and Gunnery Schools before retiring in 1971.

Writer and museum director

Forty published more than 70 books with a focus on

armoured warfare Armoured warfare or armored warfare (American English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences), is the use of armoured fighting vehicles in modern warfare. It is a major component of modern Milita ...

and also on wartime in

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

. From 1981 until his retirement in 1993 he served as the curator (director) of the

Tank Museum The Tank Museum (previously the Bovington Tank Museum) is a collection of armoured fighting vehicles at Bovington Camp in Dorset, South West England. It is about north of the village of Wool and west of the major port of Poole. The collection ...

. He modernised and greatly expanded it, becoming known as the "father of the Tank Museum". Forty's wife, Anne, worked with him at the Tank Museum. They had four sons, one of whom works at the

Royal Signals Museum The Royal Signals Museum is a military museum based at Blandford Camp in the civil parish of Tarrant Monkton, northwest of the town of Blandford Forum in Dorset, England. The museum traces the history of the British Army's battlefield communicati ...

Honours

Forty was elected a Fellow of the

Museums Association The Museums Association (MA) is a professional membership organisation based in London for museum, gallery and heritage professionals and organisations of the United Kingdom. It also offers international membership. History The association w ...

and in 1994 was appointed an OBE.

Works

*''Hitler's Atlantic Wall'' *'' The Japanese Army Handbook 1939-1945'' (1999) *''Companion to the British Army 1939-45'' *''US Marine Corps Handbook 1941-1945'' *''Patton's Third Army at War'' *''Desert Rats at War'' *''World Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armoured Vehicles'' *''Tiger Tank Battalions in World War II'' *''Battle of Crete'' *''The Armies of Rommel'' *''Road to Berlin'' *''The Soldier's Story: WWII German Infantryman'' *''The Reich's Last Gamble: The Ardennes Offensive, December 1944''

References

1927 births 2016 deaths Royal Tank Regiment officers British military writers Officers of the Order of the British Empire People educated at Ashville College Alumni of the Queen's College, Oxford Fellows of the Museums Association Graduates of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst British Army personnel of the Korean War Royal Armoured Corps officers Military personnel from London Graduates of the Staff College, Camberley British military historians Historians of armoured warfare 20th-century British Army personnel {{UK-army-bio-stub