Wylde-Bore Smith, Brian – Survived being shot in head by sniper

 Maj Gen Sir Brian Wylde-Bore Smith, (1913-2005)

FRANCIS Brian Wyldbore-Smith was born in County Durham, the son of the vicar of Grindon, Northumberland, and chaplain to the 7th Marquess of Londonderry.
Brian was educated at Wellington, where he attended the Army class before going to Woolwich.
Wyldbore-Smith was commissioned in 1933 and joined 18th Field Regiment. He saw action against the Italians at Mersa Matruh and in the pursuit of their forces from Bardia to Benghazi.
He became adjutant to General Jock Campbell VC, and took part in night attacks on Italian camps with mobile columns. In 1941 he went to Staff College, Haifa.
He and his fellow students thought little of their instructors who had no battle experience, and one evening, when they found them in a study correcting papers, they locked the door and turned a hose on them.
He won the DSO in Italy in 1943 when his battery of the 5th Regiment RHA was providing covering fire during crossing of the Garigliano river.
Wyldbore-Smith was shot out of his first observation post, a church steeple, so he climbed up a telegraph pole on the bank of the river. He was spotted by an 88 mm gunner and hit in the head and the arm. But for being strapped to the pole, he would have had a nasty fall.
After a week at an American hospital in Bizerta, a nurse told him General Patton was coming to hand out Purple Hearts. Wyldbore-Smith was not happy about receiving the award and slipped out of the hospital, made his way to the aerodrome and hitched a lift back to Italy.
He was attached to 9th Australian Division Tobruk as a staff captain before moving to 1st Armoured Division as brigade major to the commander RA. His HQ was responsible for the fireplan for the Battle of Alamein.
He subsequently became a staff officer to Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks, the commander of 10th Corps. Travelling in the general’s tank, he was responsible for keeping him in contact with Montgomery’s tactical HQ. He was a frequent visitor to the HQ, and Monty became a friend and took an interest in his career thereafter.
After the Allied landings in French North Africa in November 1942, Horrocks took command of 9th Corps in the 1st Army and Wyldbore-Smith moved with him. Horrocks nicknamed him “Rogue Elephant Jones”, and the name stuck until the end of the war.
He returned to regimental duties as a battery commander in 5th Regiment RHA and took part in the landings at Salerno in southern Italy.
He took part in Operation “Market Garden”, but missed the campaign in the Ardennes as Montgomery had asked him to write a military paper.
At the end of the war in Europe, Wyldbore-Smith organised a camp for 20,000 displaced persons. He joined the British military staff in Washington DC before going to the War Office as military assistant to the CIGS.
After an appointment on the directing staff at Staff College, Camberley, Wyldbore-Smith joined the Royal Dragoons as second-in-command, accompanying them to Egypt.
Promoted lieutenant-colonel, he moved to 7th Armoured Division as GSO1 and then commanded 15/19th Hussars in Malaya.
In 1962, after attending the Imperial Defence College and a further stint at the War Office, he was appointed Chief of Staff to the C-in-C Far East Command.
After retiring from the Army, raised funds for the Conservative Party and worked closely with Margaret Thatcher. He became Deputy Constable of Dover Castle then retired from the Army in 1968 and moved to Grantham House, Castlegate where he lived for the remainder of his life..
He married Molly Cayzer, in 1944 daughter of the 1st Lord Rotherwick, who predeceased him
Lord Carrington asked Wyldbore-Smith to help raise money for the Conservatives, and together they persuaded companies in the City to contribute to party funds.
Wyldbore-Smith became a member of the Conservative Board of Finance and subsequently a director.
He regarded the 10 years after 1979 when Mrs Thatcher became prime minister as the most stimulating time of his career. In 1992 he became a fund-raiser for the Thatcher Foundation.
He was colonel of the 15/19th Hussars from 1970 to 1977. He enjoyed hunting and shooting and the garden, for which his wife, Molly, provided much of the inspiration.
He was knighted in 1980. He published March Past, a volume of memoirs, in 2001.