Field Marshal, Special Forces Operative. He commanded infantry and armoured divisions, as well as the Directorate of the Special Operations Executive, during the Second World War then led British forces during the Malayan Emergency during the Cold War. He joined the Army in 1916 and served on the Western Front with the Irish Fusiliers during the First World War. In the inter-war period, he served in Palestine during the Arab insurgency, and also made the 1924 Olympic squad as a 120-yard hurdler. In 1940, he went to France as an intelligence officer in the British Expeditionary Force. After Dunkirk, he oversaw the 9th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment then commanded a brigade in a Home Service division. In 1942, he took command of the 47th Division as a Major-General. Shortly after, he commanded II Corps as the Army's youngest Lieutenant-General. In 1943-44, he commanded the 56th Division in Italy during the battles around Anzio. He briefly commanded the 6th Armoured Division before being wounded by a land mine in mid-1944. He spent the rest of the war on intelligence duties with 21st Army Group HQ as well as heading the German Directorate of the Special Operations Executive. He then served as Director of Military Government in occupied Germany before being appointed Director of Military Intelligence at the War Office in 1946. After a spell in charge of Eastern Command in February 1952, following the assassination of the local High Commissioner, he was sent to Malaya to assume control of both the civil government and military operations, facing a communist insurgency there led by the Malayan Races Liberation Army. He combined vigorous military operations against the insurgents' jungle bases with political reforms designed to win the 'hearts and minds' of the racially divided Malayan community. Indeed, he is credited with coining this phrase; 'The answer lies not in pouring more soldiers into the jungle, but in the hearts and minds of the Malayan people… The shooting side of this business is only 25 percent of the trouble and the other 75 lies in getting the people of this country behind us.' He continued his predecessors' policy of building new settlements for the marginalised Chinese population and promised independence once the guerrillas had been defeated, winning him the support of many nationalists. He also involved the local population in the fight against the guerrillas, increasing the number of Malay battalions and strengthening the Home Guard raised to defend the new villages. These measures helped unite the population against the insurrection. The campaign was a striking success and is still studied today as a model of how such operations should be conducted. When he relinquished his post in October 1954, government control over most of the country had been re-established. He was appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1955, and created a Field Marshal in 1956. After retiring from active service in 1958, he threw his energies into the creation of the National Army Museum in Chelsea, London.