Rea Leakey

Arundell Rea Leakey
Arundell Rea Leakey
Born	30 December 1915; Second World War Operation Compass; Siege of Tobruk; Battle of Gazala; Operation Jupiter; Siege of Dunkirk;
Awards	War Cross (Czechoslovakia)
Relations	Lieutenant General David Leakey (son); Nigel Leakey (brother)

CB, DSO, MC & Bar (30 December 1915 – 6 October 1999) was an officer in the British Army. He served in the Royal Tank Regiment in the Second World War, in North Africa, Italy and France. He later served in Korea, in the Arab Legion, and commanded a brigade in the British Army of the Rhine in the 1960s. He served as Director-General of Fighting Vehicles and finally as the commander of British troops in Malta and Libya. He retired in 1966, and became Director of the Wolfson Foundation

. An autobiography, Leakey's Luck, was published in 1999.

His father Gray Leakey and step-mother Mary were murdered by the Mau Mau in Kenya in 1954. His older brother Nigel Leakey was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross in the Second World War, and a cousin Joshua Leakey was awarded the Victoria Cross in 2015. One of his sons is Lieutenant General David Leakey.

Early life

Leakey was born in Nairobi, Kenya on 30 December 1915. His father, Arundell Gray Leakey, was the son of Reverend John Arundell Leakey, a clergyman in England.^[1]

Leakey's father had served in a

First World War.^[2]

Through his great-grandfather James Shirley Leakey (1824–1871), one of the eleven children of the portrait painter

paleoanthropologists Louis Leakey and Richard Leakey

.

His older brother Nigel Leakey was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross in 1945, for his actions in Ethiopia in 1941. Another relative Joshua Leakey was awarded the Victoria Cross in 2015, for his actions in Afghanistan in 2013. His sister Agnes Leakey (1917–2007) (later Agnes Hofmeyr) worked for reconciliation in Kenya.^[3]

Leakey's mother Elizabeth died in 1926, when he was 10 years old. He was educated at boarding school in Kenya, and then at

Coles Universal Sun Compass.^[1] He was promoted to lieutenant in January 1939.^[5]

Second World War

Leakey was serving on the staff of the

Mark VI tank. He commanded a troop and then a squadron, and won the Military Cross at Martuba on 21 January 1941, fighting against Italian forces during Operation Compass.^[1]^[6]^[7]

After German forces arrived in North Africa, Leakey's regiment was sent to form part of the garrison at Tobruk in April 1941. Despite constant attacks from the German Afrika Korps that was besieging Tobruk, Leakey grew bored of garrison life; although by then a temporary captain, he volunteered to serve as a private soldier with the 2/23rd Australian Infantry Battalion for three months. He was awarded a Bar to the Military Cross for actions of 9 August 1941, while serving with the Australians: he is believed to be the only captain in the British Army serving as a lance corporal in the Australian army to win the MC. His exploits were later recounted by The Victor comic in the 1960s.^[1]^[8]^[9]^[10]

Leakey was then sent to the Staff College in

Kolito in Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) in May 1941, while serving with the King's African Rifles, for which he was later awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.^[1]^[11]

Leakey learned to fly while serving as a Air Intelligence Liaison Officer with

GSO2 in the headquarters of the 7th Armoured Division. He eventually went to Persia in July 1942, after Rommel's advance stalled near El Alamein.^[1]

He transferred back to the

VE Day in May 1945. He volunteered for service in the Far East but the war ended before he arrived.^[1]^[12]^[13]

Leakey was promoted to the substantive rank of captain in 1944, and was appointed to the Distinguished Service Order in 1945 for his leadership of 5th RTR. Although at the time a temporary lieutenant colonel, he was too young at 29-year-old to hold the substantive rank.^[1]^[14]^[15]

Post-war career

Leakey commanded the 5th RTR in Europe until 1947. He was promoted to the rank of major in 1949,

3rd Division in Cyprus.^[1]

Promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1955, he spent two years as an instructor at the staff college in

General Officer Commanding Headquarters Malta and Libya, supervising British troops in Malta and Libya, 1967-68.^[1]

Leakey chose to retire early in 1966, aged 51. He was appointed

Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 1967 New Year Honours.^[17]

Back in civilian life, he was Director and Secretary of the Wolfson Foundation from 1968 to 1980.^[1]^[16]

Private life

Leakey married Muriel Irene Le Poer Trench in 1949. They had two sons; one is Lieutenant General David Leakey. After they were divorced in 1984, he married Joan Morant in 1994. An autobiography, Leakey's Luck, was published in 1999 (edited by George Forty).^[1] After his death in 1999, his papers were donated to the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King's College London.^[18]

Leakey's father, a farmer at Nyeri Station, west of

Central Province, Kenya, about 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Kiganjo and about 100 miles (160 km) north of Nairobi. His father was an honorary Kikuyu tribesman known as "Morungaru" ("tall and straight"). He was kidnapped and brutally murdered by the Mau Mau in October 1954. His second wife Mary (née Becher, and formerly married to Hugh Alexander Littleton) was also killed.^[19]^[20]