Gen. Sir Edward Burgess OBE

"General Sir Edward Burgess, who has died aged 87, was Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe from 1984 to 1987 and subsequently became a much revered president of the Royal British Legion.
His appointment to the British Legion was a source of great pride to Burgess and, after protracted negotiations with the Indian government, he was given permission to cross their sensitive north-east frontier and lead a pilgrimage of war widows to Imphal and Kohima. This was where General Bill Slim, the leader of the “forgotten” 14th Army in Burma, halted the Japanese drive on India, and those strategic locations saw some of the most ferocious fighting of the Second World War.
Few traces of the battlefield with its warren of bunkers and weapons pits remain, but Burgess was well versed in the campaign and was able to point out where the Japanese had taken refuge in bread ovens – until dislodged by two officers charging uphill with a door loaded with explosives – and the District Commissioner’s garden, where the tennis court became a no man’s land with hand grenades being lobbed between the protagonists like tennis balls.
Burgess and his wife, Jean, led what became an epic journey into the Naga Hills, the home of the Naga peoples who did so much to support the Allied cause and at such cost to themselves. He said afterwards that the emotions of the widows when they had found the graves of those they had lost had left an unforgettable impression on him.
The son of a police officer, Edward Arthur Burgess was born at Purbrook, near Portsmouth, on September 30 1927, and was educated at All Saints School, Bloxham, Lincoln College, Oxford (where he attended a short course), and Sandhurst. Always known as Ted, he enlisted in the Army just as the Second World War ended.
In 1948 he was commissioned and the next 12 years were spent on regimental duties with the Royal Artillery in Germany, Egypt and Palestine. Attendance at Staff College was followed by a spell at the War Office and then a return to regimental soldiering with 49th Field Regiment RA in Borneo during the Confrontation with Indonesia."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11611026/General-Sir-Edward-Burgess-obituary.html