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 ...

Philip de Fonblanque (16 November 1885 – 2 July 1940) was a senior British officer, who at the start of the

Second World War 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 ...

, organised the

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

for the British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium. Already a sick man, the result of his exertions was that he died shortly after his evacuation from France in June 1940.

Early life

Philip de Fonblanque was born in 1885 in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

, the elder son of Lester Ramsay de Fonblanque, Vicomte de Fonblanque whose father was Edward Barrington de Fonblanque, a writer and traveller descended from a

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

family, and Constance Lucy, the daughter of Colonel Hon. Robert Dundas Kerr, and great-granddaughter of

William Kerr, 5th Marquess of Lothian General William John Kerr, 5th Marquess of Lothian (13 March 1737 – 4 January 1815) was a British soldier and peer, styled Lord Newbattle until 1767 and Earl of Ancrum from 1767 to 1775. He was buried at St Andrew's parish Church, Farnham, S ...

. His younger brother, Edward Barrington de Fonblanque (1895-1981), also rose to become a major-general. He entered

Rugby School Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. Up ...

in May 1899 at the age of 13 and left in 1902. From there, he became a cadet at the

Royal Military Academy, Woolwich The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers of the Royal Corps of Sig ...

for a year 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 ...

in March 1905. In 1916 he married Stella, eldest daughter of Sir Henry May, governor of Hong Kong. There were a son and two daughters of the marriage.Obituary, Major-General Philip de Fonblanque, DSO. ''The Times'' Monday, 8 Jul 1940; pg. 7; Issue 48662

Military career

During the

First World War 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 fightin ...

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

de Fonblanque was given the temporary rank of

Major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...

when he took command of a Field Company of

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

in November 1916, although he relinquished this rank to become a

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 un ...

to a chief engineer in July 1917. Between the wars, de Fonblanque held a number of staff posts, culminating in being appointed Chief Administration Officer of

Scottish Command Scottish Command or Army Headquarters Scotland (from 1972) is a command of the British Army. History Early history Great Britain was divided into military districts on the outbreak of war with France in 1793. The Scottish District was comman ...

in 1937. In October 1938, he headed a British mission with the task of observing the withdrawal of the

Czechoslovak Army The Czechoslovak Army (Czech and Slovak: Československá armáda) was the name of the armed forces of Czechoslovakia. It was established in 1918 following Czechoslovakia's declaration of independence from Austria-Hungary. History In the fi ...

from the

Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and sk, Sudety) is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the ...

under the terms of the

Munich Agreement The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, Germany, the United Kingdom, French Third Republic, France, and Fa ...

With the outbreak of the Second World War and the dispatch of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to France in September 1939, de Fonblanque was appointed General Officer Commanding, Lines of Communication Area for the force, which was under the overall command of

Lord Gort Field Marshal John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort, (10 July 1886 – 31 March 1946) was a senior British Army officer. As a young officer during the First World War, he was decorated with the Victoria Cross for his acti ...

. De Fonblanque's responsibility was to facilitate the supply of everything required by the force in its forward positions on the border with

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. By January 1940, the total size of the BEF had risen to 222,200 men in six divisions. Originally, the

materiel Materiel (; ) refers to supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply-chain management, and typically supplies and equipment in a commercial supply chain context. In a military context, the term ''materiel'' refers either to the specifi ...

needed by the force was all channelled through depots at

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...

and

Brest Brest may refer to: Places *Brest, Belarus **Brest Region **Brest Airport **Brest Fortress * Brest, Kyustendil Province, Bulgaria * Břest, Czech Republic *Brest, France ** Arrondissement of Brest **Brest Bretagne Airport ** Château de Brest *Br ...

, but construction of an Advance Base Area began at

Le Havre Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very cl ...

in November 1939. By the following April, some nineteen French ports were being used for British logistics, with up to 100,000 tons of stores being imported monthly. In addition to that, a network of reserve and forward supply depots had been constructed in an area extending over a third of France. As the

Battle of France The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of French Third Rep ...

progressed, de Fonblanque, whose headquarters were at

Le Mans Le Mans (, ) is a city in northwestern France on the Sarthe River where it meets the Huisne. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le Man ...

, and much of his logistic chain, became separated from the fighting formations of the BEF by the German ''

Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg ( , ; from 'lightning' + 'war') is a word used to describe a surprise attack using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with close air su ...

''. The arrival of General Sir

Alan Brooke Field Marshal Alan Francis Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, (23 July 1883 – 17 June 1963), was a senior officer of the British Army. He was Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), the professional head of the British Army, during the Sec ...

on 13 June to command the remaining British troops in France, was the catalyst for the decision to evacuate all of them, an undertaking codenamed

Operation Aerial Operation Aerial was the evacuation of Allied forces and civilians from ports in western France from 15 to 25 June 1940 during the Second World War. The evacuation followed the Allied military collapse in the Battle of France against Nazi Germ ...

. De Fonblanque was heavily involved in organising the landward side of the evacuation, which was successful in getting away almost all the men, some 190,000 of them, as well as a great quantity of invaluable guns, vehicles and stores that could easily have been lost.

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

later wrote in his memoirs, ''The Second World War'': His death from an existing illness hastened by his heavy responsibilities in France took place in Cambridge on 2 July 1940, aged 54. He is buried in

Cambridge City Cemetery Cambridge City Cemetery is the main burial ground for the city of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire. It is to the north of the city, at the junction of Newmarket Road and Ditton Lane, near to Cambridge Airport. The cemetery held its first burial on 6 ...

References

Bibliography

External links

Generals of World War IIPhotographic portrait of Philip de Fonblanque, by Walter Stoneman, April 1940
in the collection of the

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:de Fonblanque, Philip 1885 births 1940 deaths People educated at Rugby School Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich Royal Engineers officers British Army generals of World War II Companions of the Distinguished Service Order English people of Scottish descent Burials at the Cambridge City Cemetery De Fonblanque family British Army personnel killed in World War II Military personnel of British India British Army major generals British people in colonial India