Maj.Gen. CHARLES ROGER ALAN SWYNNERTON C.B.E, D.S.O
Charles Swynnerton was born in Simla, North India on the 12th February 1901,
the second son of Frederick Swynnerton, Artist and Louise Angelo.
He was commissioned into the North Staffordshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales's) in 1920.
He joined the 1st Battalion on the Curragh and accompanied it to Gibraltar,
Eastern Thrace and Turkey, and Secunderabad in India.
Then followed two years in Sierra Leone,
where for a time (in 1926) he was also appointed an Inspector of Police by the Governor.
In 1926 he married Clares Ines Stevenson, and they had two sons, Jeremy Charles Angelo and Timothy Frederick.
From 1926 until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939
he served with his regiment in Lichfield, Ballykinler and Gibraltar.
He attended Staff College in 1933 followed by tours on the Staff in Malta, Palestine and Transjordan,
York and the War Office where he was serving at the outbreak of war.
After a brief spell with his Regiment in Aldershot,
in 1940 he was sent on promotion to a Staff post in Nigeria
where two divisions were being raised and trained for service in Burma.
In 1942 he commanded a battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment for a short time
followed by command of the 6th Battalion the North Staffordshire Regiment in 1942/3.
His main service, however, was to be once again with the West African Frontier Force.
In September 1943 he assumed command of the 1st (West African) Infantry Brigade
which he organised and trained in Nigeria.
He took the Brigade to Burma in 1944 as part of the 82nd West African Division
and led it throughout the Arakan campaign until the end of the war.
There were few roads, and most supplies, stores and and equipment had to be transported by porters
(called Auxiliary Groups) over the entire 500 miles of the Arakan mountains.
At the end of the war, during which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order,
he was appointed to command of the Division and took it back to Nigeria to be disbanded.
It is interesting to note that at this time his official rank was Major
(War Substantive Lt.Col.) (Temporary Brigadier) (Acting Major General).
In 1946 he was appointed General Officer Commanding Nigeria District
and a member of the Executive Council of Nigeria on the 17th January 1947.
He was Acting GOC-in-C at the time of the first serious post-war disturbances
in West Africa (the Gold Coast of 1948) when reinforcement troops were flown in
from neighbouring Nigeria in a hotch-potch of civil and military aircraft.
Charles Swynnerton was very much loved by his African soldiers and
gained the respect, confidence and friendship of many of the local leaders
who later came to prominence in Nigeria.
For his services in Nigeria he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath
on the 2nd January 1950.
After leaving Nigeria he was appointed British Military Attache on the 25th September 1949
to what the Foreign Office still rather quaintly called Angora, in Turkey,
where his fluency in the Turkish language was a great asset and much admired by the Turks.
Just prior to this tour, he was appointed ADC to HM King George VI from 22nd June 1949
until the latter's death in 1952, and subsequently ADC to HM Queen Elizabeth II.
After holding the post in Turkey for what must surely be a record period of almost five years,
he retired on the 21st July 1954 to a house in Hampshire.
He was appointed Colonel Commandant of the Royal West African Force on 23th September 1954
and Colonel of the North Staffordshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales's) on 1st June 1955,
an achievement without parallel in the history of his regiment.
While on an official visit to troops in Sierra Leone in March 1953
in his capacity as Colonel Commandant of the RWAFF,
he became dangerously ill in Freetown and had to be brought home by sea.
Although he recovered fully he was forced to resign both these appointments
and he and his wife eventually decided to leave England and settled in Spain
where they built themselves a house near Malaga.
After almost fifteen years of retirement in Spain both he and his wife became ill
and died in London in 1973 within a few months of each other.
Major General Charles Swynnerton was a keen and talented writer of short stories.
In 1938 he won second prize in the Royal United Service Institution's Trench Gascoigne
Memorial Essay Competition.
He had a large number of articles published regularly under a variety of pseudonyms
in such papers and magazines as
The Times,
Blackwood's Magazine,
The Illustrated London News and, of course, his Regimental Magazines.
By Sjwells53 (Own work)
