General A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". O ...

Sir George Watkin Eben James Erskine (23 August 1899 – 29 August 1965) was a senior

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 Gur ...

officer An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," fro ...

who is most notable for having commanded the 7th Armoured Division from 1943 to 1944 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 opposing ...

, and leading major counter-insurgency operations during the

Mau Mau Uprising The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the ''Mau Mau'', a ...

, including the brutal interrogation and torture of Kenyan civilians and other war crimes, of which he had direct knowledge.

Early life and First World War

Erskine was the son of

Major-General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

George Elphinstone Erskine by his second wife Eva Constance Sarah, daughter of Canon Ebenezer Wood Edwards. He was a descendant of the noted 18th-century jurist John Erskine of Carnock.General Sir George Watkin Eben James Erskine
The Peerage Erskine was educated at

Charterhouse School (God having given, I gave) , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , president ...

and later entered 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 infantry a ...

and was commissioned as a

second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until 1 ...

into the

King's Royal Rifle Corps The King's Royal Rifle Corps was an infantry rifle regiment of the British Army that was originally raised in British North America as the Royal American Regiment during the phase of the Seven Years' War in North America known in the United S ...

(KRRC) in 1918. He served during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fight ...

in France and Belgium and attended the

Staff College, Camberley Staff College, Camberley, Surrey, was a staff college for the British Army and the presidency armies of British India (later merged to form the Indian Army). It had its origins in the Royal Military College, High Wycombe, founded in 1799, which ...

from 1929 to 1930. During the 1930s he served in

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

but returned to Britain in 1937 to become Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General at Eastern Command.

Second World War

In 1939 he became a

General Staff Officer A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, enlisted and civilian staff who serve the commander of a division or other large military ...

for 1st London Division of the Territorial Army (TA). In 1941 he was appointed

Commanding Officer The commanding officer (CO) or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latitud ...

(CO) of the 2nd Battalion, KRRC, who were then part of the 69th Infantry Brigade and sent to

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 t ...

, where he earned his

Distinguished Service Order The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly of other parts of the Commonwealth, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, ty ...

(DSO) in 1942. He served as Brigadier General Staff (BGS) of XIII Corps, commanded by William Gott, a fellow officer of the KRRC, then

Brian Horrocks Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Gwynne Horrocks, (7 September 1895 – 4 January 1985) was a British Army officer, chiefly remembered as the commander of XXX Corps in Operation Market Garden and other operations during the Second World W ...

and

Miles Dempsey General Sir Miles Christopher Dempsey, (15 December 1896 – 5 June 1969) was a senior British Army officer who served in both world wars. During the Second World War he commanded the Second Army in north west Europe. A highly professional ...

in 1942. He was then promoted to acting major-general on 24 January 1943 and was appointed General Officer Commanding (GOC) 7th Armoured Division. He served with the division in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

and

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

between 1943 and 1944. During the

Battle of Normandy Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Norm ...

in June and July 1944 the British Second Army commander,

Lieutenant-General Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on t ...

, was unimpressed with the performance of the 7th Armoured Division and the

VIII Corps 8th Corps, Eighth Corps, or VIII Corps may refer to: * VIII Corps (Grande Armée), a unit of the Imperial French army during the Napoleonic Wars * VIII Army Corps (German Confederation) * VIII Corps (German Empire), a unit of the Imperial German A ...

commander, Lieutenant-General

Richard O'Connor General Sir Richard Nugent O'Connor, (21 August 1889 – 17 June 1981) was a senior British Army officer who fought in both the First and Second World Wars, and commanded the Western Desert Force in the early years of the Second World War. ...

, considered his direction of the division during

Operation Goodwood Operation Goodwood was a British offensive during the Second World War, which took place between 18 and 20 July 1944 as part of the larger battle for Caen in Normandy, France. The objective of the operation was a limited attack to the sout ...

excessively cautious.Mead, p. 131. Shortly afterwards, in the difficult

bocage Bocage (, ) is a terrain of mixed woodland and pasture characteristic of parts of Northern France, Southern England, Ireland, the Netherlands and Northern Germany, in regions where pastoral farming is the dominant land use. ''Bocage'' may als ...

country during

Operation Bluecoat Operation Bluecoat was a British offensive in the Battle of Normandy, from 30 July until 7 August 1944, during the Second World War. The geographical objectives of the attack, undertaken by VIII Corps and XXX Corps of the British Second Arm ...

, the 7th Armoured Division failed to gain its objectives and Erskine was sacked and replaced by

Gerald Lloyd-Verney Major-General Gerald Harry George Lloyd-Verney DSO & Bar MVO (10 July 1900 – 3 April 1957) was a senior British Army officer who commanded the 7th Armoured Division ("The Desert Rats") during World War II. He changed his name by Deed poll ...

. In spite of his indifferent performance as a field commander Erskine had qualities which suited him to other roles and this episode proved only a temporary setback to his career. He became Head of the

Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF; ) was the headquarters of the Commander of Allied forces in north west Europe, from late 1943 until the end of World War II. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the commander in SHAEF t ...

Mission to Belgium in 1944 and then GOC 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division in 1945.

Later career

After the war, Erskine was Commander of British Forces in Hong Kong in 1946, Director General of the Territorial Army 1948 to 1949 and GOC

British Troops in Egypt British Troops in Egypt was a command of the British Army. History A British Army commander was appointed in the late 19th century after the Anglo-Egyptian War in 1882. The British Army remained in Egypt throughout the First World War and, after ...

in 1949. Returning to the United Kingdom, he became GOC-in-Chief, Eastern Command in 1952. In 1953 he was appointed GOC-in-Chief,

East Africa Command East Africa Command was a Command of the British Army. Until 1947 it was under the direct control of the Army Council and thereafter it became the responsibility of Middle East Command. It was disbanded on 11 December 1963, the day before Kenya be ...

where he had command of all security forces, including the police. He was responsible for managing the response to the

Mau Mau rebellion The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the ''Mau Mau'', ...

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

, and led Operation Anvil in

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper ...

in April 1954. Lieutenant General Sir George Erskine, Commander-in-Chief, East Africa (centre), observing operations against the Mau Mau

In a letter to the British government, not made public until 2005, Erskine described his direct knowledge of the mistreatment of Kenyan civilians during the suppression of the uprising, including instances of torture and murder: "There is no doubt that in the early days... there was a great deal of indiscriminate shooting by army and police. I am quite certain prisoners were beaten to extract information. It is a short step from beating to torture and I'm now sure... that torture was a feature of many police posts." According to historian Fabian Klose, Erskine made extensive use of forced resettlement and mass internment to, in Klose's words, "break the back of the insurgency." Upon taking command, Erskine issued an order that read: "I will not tolerate breaches of discipline leading to unfair treatment of anybody," and ordered that "every officer... should stamp on at once any conduct which he would be ashamed to see used against his own people." This did not stop Erskine from concealing incidents such as the

Chuka Massacre The Chuka massacre, which happened in Chuka, Kenya, was perpetrated by members of B Company, 5th Battalion of the King's African Rifles in June 1953 with 20 unarmed people killed during the Mau Mau uprising. The massacre The 5th KAR B Company h ...

, though he also took steps to prosecute Major Griffiths, the officer responsible for the latter incident. Erskine was GOC-in-Chief,

Southern Command Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...

from 1955 to 1958, when he retired.

After retirement

He was an Aide-de-Camp General to

the Queen In the English-speaking world, The Queen most commonly refers to: * Elizabeth II (1926–2022), Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 1952 until her death The Queen may also refer to: * Camilla, Queen Consort (born 1947 ...

from 1955 to 1965. Erskine was appointed

Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(KBE) in 1950, a

Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) as on ...

(KCB) in 1952 and a

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved Bathing#Medieval ...

(GCB) in 1955. From 1958 to 1963 he was Lieutenant Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Jersey.

Family

Erskine married Ruby de la Rue, daughter of Sir Evelyn de la Rue, 2nd Baronet, in 1930. They had two sons and one daughter.

References

* Anderson, David; Bennett, Huw; Branch, Daniel (August 2006). "A Very British Massacre". History Today. 56 (8): 20–22. * *

External links

Generals of World War II
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