Hugh Beach
Sir Hugh Beach | |
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Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath Military Cross | |
| Relations | William Henry Beach (father) Thomas Boswall Beach (uncle) |
Early life
Beach was educated at Winchester College, Peterhouse, Cambridge (MA 1961) and the University of Edinburgh (MSc 1971).[3]
Military career
Beach joined the Corps of Royal Engineers in August 1941. He saw active service in France and Belgium in 1944 and in Java in 1946. In Normandy he was ordered to clear a road of mines, but the first vehicle to use the road struck an undetected mine and was destroyed. He cleared the road again and rode on the next vehicle to use the road. In the North of France he was attached to the 11th Hussars. He was injured while reconnoitring a bridge at Cuinchy, on La Bassée Canal, but insisted on filing a full report before being taken to hospital at Arras, enabling the British to capture the bridge.[1]
During the 1960s Beach commanded an engineer regiment and an infantry brigade, both at
Beach also served as Colonel of the Royal Pioneer Corps from 1976 to 1981.[4]
Later life
Retiring from the army in 1981, Beach served as warden of St. George's House, Windsor Castle from 1981 to 1986, vice-Lord Lieutenant of Greater London from 1981 to 1987, Chief Royal Engineer from 1982 to 1987 and member of the Security Commission from 1982 to 1991. He chaired Ministry of Defence Study Groups on Censorship in War in 1983 and Education in the Army in 1984. He was director of the Council for Arms Control from 1986 to 1989. He was a member of the Board of Governors of Monkton Combe School from 1984 to 1993.[5] In the 1990s he was chairman of the governors of Gordon's and Bedales schools, and also chaired the boards of the Church Army and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.[citation needed]
Beach was a member of the board or executive committee of: the Council for Christian Approaches to Defence,
In January 2009, The Times newspaper published a joint letter from Field Marshal
Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently, or are likely to, face — particularly international terrorism; and the more you analyse them the more unusable they appear.
Beach died 4 September 2019 at age 96.[2]
Personal life
Beach married Estelle Mary Henry, a doctor, in 1951. She died from an aortic embolism in 1989.[1]
Honours
Beach held honorary Doctorate of Civil Laws from the
The Cuinchy Bridge, where he was injured in September 1944, was named "Hugh Beach Bridge" in his honor, in September 2021.[14]
References
- ^ a b c "General Sir Hugh Beach obituary".
- ^ a b c "General Sir Hugh Beach, brilliant soldier decorated after D-Day who went on to carry out a radical re-organisation of the nation's reserve forces – obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 5 September 2019. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
- ^ a b Beach, Hugh (May 1986). "British Defence Policy and the South Atlantic". South Atlantic Council Occasional Papers. City University. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
- ^ "Royal Pioneer Corps". Regiments.org. Archived from the original on 19 July 2006. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
- ^ A Delightful Inheritance by P LeRoy, Monkton Print, 2018
- ^ Council for Christian Approaches to Defence and Disarmament
- ^ VERTIC
- ^ ISIS
- ^ Pugwash Conferences on science and world affairs
- ^ Beach H and Gurr N Flattering the Passions, Or, The Bomb and Britain's Bid for a World Role
- ^ Beach H Cluster Bombs: the Case for New Controls Archived 9 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine, ISIS Europe, May 2001
- ^ UK does not need a nuclear deterrent The Times, 16 January 2009
- ^ Hugh Beach – A Memoir (ed) David Evans, (W. G. H. Beach, London, 2003)
- ^ https://www.lavoixdunord.fr/1065128/article/2021-09-04/le-pont-de-cuinchy-porte-desormais-le-nom-de-hugh-beach-qui-participe-sa
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