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{{short description|British Army general}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2021}}
{{Infobox military person
|name=John Sydney Lethbridge
|birth_date=11 December 1897
|death_date=11 August 1961 (aged 63)
|nickname=
|birth_place=
|death_place=[[Devon]], England{{sfn|Smart|2005|p=188}}
|allegiance={{flag|United Kingdom}}
|branch={{army|United Kingdom}}
|serviceyears=1915-1960
|rank=[[Major-general (United Kingdom)|Major General]]
|unit= [[Royal Engineers]]
|servicenumber= 13389
|battles=[[World War I|First World War]]<br>[[World War II|Second World War]]
|relations=
|awards= [[Companion of the Order of the Bath]]<br>[[Commander of the Order of the British Empire]]<br>[[Military Cross]]
|laterwork=
}}
[[Major-general (United Kingdom)|Major-General]] '''John Sydney Lethbridge''' [[Order of the Bath|CB]], [[Order of the British Empire|CBE]], [[Military Cross|MC]] (11 December 1897 – 11 August 1961) was a British [[soldier]].

==Early life==
Born in Barrackpore, India, the son of Lt-Col. Sydney Lethbridge, [[Order of the British Empire|OBE]] [[Royal Artillery|RA]] and Susannah Maud Slator, Lethbridge was educated at [[Gresham's School]], [[Holt, Norfolk|Holt]], [[Uppingham School]], [[Leicestershire]], the [[Royal Military Academy, Woolwich]] and [[Jesus College, Cambridge]].<ref name=ww>[http://www.xreferplus.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=6170382 LETHBRIDGE, Major-General John Sydney]{{dead link|date=April 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} at ''Who Was Who 1897-2006'' online at xreferplus.com (Retrieved 4 November 2007)</ref>

==Military career==
[[File:Memorial to the Lethbridge family, Exeter Cathedral.JPG|thumb|Memorial to Lethbridge and his family in [[Exeter Cathedral]]]]
Lethbridge was commissioned into the [[Corps of Royal Engineers]] in 1915 during the [[World War I|First World War]] and saw active service on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] with 123 Field Company at the first battle of [[Ypres]] in 1915 and later at the [[Battle of the Somme]] in 1916 and as a temporary [[Captain (British Army and Royal Marines)|Captain]] with the [[Bengal Engineer Group|King George V's Own Bengal Sappers and Miners]] in [[India]] in 1917 before serving with the Aden Frontier Force for operations in southern Arabia between 1917 and 1918.<ref name=lh>[http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/cats/lethbridge/le50-0.shtml#BIO Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives]</ref> He commanded, as acting [[major]], a company of King George V's Own Bengal Sappers and Miners in [[Afghanistan]] and on the [[North-West Frontier Province (1901–1955)|North West Frontier]] during the [[Third Anglo-Afghan War]] from 1919 to 1922.<ref name=lh/> He served again with King George V's Own Bengal Sappers and Miners at [[Roorkee]] and [[Rawalpindi]] and saw active service in [[Peshawar]] against [[Afridi (Pashtun)|Afridi]] raiders in 1930.<ref name=lh/> After graduating from [[Pakistan Command and Staff College|Staff College]] at [[Quetta]] in 1932 he became Superintendent of Instruction at [[Roorkee]] and was then appointed a Field Works major at [[Chatham, Medway|Chatham]] in 1933.<ref name=lh/> He joined the General Staff at Headquarters, [[Northern Command (United Kingdom)|Northern Command]] at [[York]] and then transferred to the Military Operations Branch and Directorate of Recruiting and Organisation at the [[War Office]] in 1936 before becoming an instructor at the Senior Officers' School at [[Sheerness]] in 1939.<ref name=lh/>

Lethbridge served in the [[World War II|Second World War]] with [[British Expeditionary Force (World War II)|British Expeditionary Force]] in France in 1939 before becoming Commander Royal Engineers for the [[59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division]].<ref name=lh/> He went on to be Deputy Director of Staff Duties at the [[War Office]] in 1940, liaison officer with US Forces in London in 1942 and leader of the 'Lethbridge Mission' to study tactics and equipment required to defeat Japan in the Far East in 1943.<ref name=lh/> His last war appointment was as Chief of Staff for the [[Fourteenth Army (United Kingdom)|14th Army]] in [[Burma]] from 1944 under the command of Field Marshal Sir [[William Slim]], later 1st Viscount Slim.<ref name=lh/>

After the War Lethbridge became Chief of Intelligence for the [[Allied Control Council|Control Commission for Germany]] and [[British Army of the Rhine]] in 1945, Commandant of the [[Sunningdale Park|Civil Defence Staff College]] in 1949 and Director of Civil Defence for the South West Region (Bristol) in September 1955.<ref name=ww/> Lethbridge retired to Bondleigh, near [[North Tawton]], in [[Devon]], but died in August 1961, less than a year after his retirement.<ref name=ww/>

==Family==
In 1925, Lethbridge married Katharine Greville Maynard, the daughter of Sir John Maynard, [[Order of the Indian Empire|KCIE]] [[Order of the Star of India|CSI]] in Shimla, India, and they had one son and two daughters.<ref name=ww/>

==Honours==
*[[Military Cross]], 1919<ref name=ww/>
*[[Order of the British Empire|Commander of the Order of the British Empire]], 1942<ref name=ww/>
*Companion of the [[Order of the Bath]], 1946<ref name=ww/>
*Commander, [[Legion of Merit|US Legion of Merit]], 1946<ref name=ww/>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
*{{cite book| first=Nick| last=Smart| title=Biographical Dictionary of British Generals of the Second World War| isbn=1844150496| year=2005| location=Barnesley| publisher=Pen & Sword}}

==External links==
*[https://generals.dk/general/Lethbrigde/John_Sydney/Great_Britain.html Generals of World War II]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lethbridge, John Sydney}}
[[Category:1897 births]]
[[Category:1961 deaths]]
[[Category:People educated at Gresham's School]]
[[Category:People educated at Uppingham School]]
[[Category:Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich]]
[[Category:Royal Engineers officers]]
[[Category:British Army generals of World War II]]
[[Category:British Indian Army officers]]
[[Category:Bengal Sappers and Miners personnel]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:British Army major generals]]
[[Category:Indian Army personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:British military personnel of the Third Anglo-Afghan War]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Military Cross]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of the Bath]]
[[Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:Commanders of the Legion of Merit]]
[[Category:Lethbridge family|John Sydney]]
[[Category:Military personnel of British India]]
[[Category:Graduates of the Staff College, Quetta]]

John Sydney Lethbridge - Revision history

Bot at 14:25, 22 June 2022