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Obituary General Sir Thomas Pearson, KCB, CBE, DSO & Bar
was ordered to prevent any further withdrawal.
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Having driven the enemy from the west side of the road while under heavy fire, he held the position against repeated counter-attacks by greatly superior numbers of infantry and armour for two days and nights. Surrounded twice, he destroyed the encircling tanks.
After the 4th Armoured Brigade arrived in support, Pearson negotiated the surrender of a force of about 15,000 Italian soldiers. Asked for his thoughts at the time, he replied: “I was worried that they would find out that I had only just over 100 soldiers on my side.
The picture of the surrender, commissioned by the Rifle Brigade and painted by Terence Cuneo, shows
General Sir Thomas Pearson, who died aged 105, was a rifleman and a parachute brigade commander who was awarded two DSOs in the course of an outstanding military career.
Thomas Cecil Hook Pearson, the son of ViceAdmiral J L Pearson, was born on July 1 1914 at Queenstown in Ireland and educated at Charterhouse. He was commissioned from Sandhurst into the Rifle Brigade and posted to 1RB. He subsequently transferred to 2RB, with whom he served as a platoon commander in India, Malta and Palestine.
In January 1940 Pearson accompanied the Battalion to Egypt and the Western Desert where he was Mentioned in Despatches. In February the following year he was in Libya, in command of the Advance Guard Company, a motorised rifle unit and a section of anti-tank guns. The 10th Italian Army was withdrawing south down the coast road from Benghazi to Agedabia and he Pearson in the foreground and the line of Italians stretching into the distance. He was awarded his first DSO, the citation stating that his courage and leadership were chiefly responsible for preventing the enemy from breaking through.
He took over command of 2RB in November after the CO, Lt Col “Vic” Turner, was severely wounded at Kidney Ridge in Egypt in an action for which he was awarded the VC.
In early May 1943, the armour was held up by German anti-tank fire from a position that could not be observed, to the north of the mountain Djebel Ressas in Tunisia. On the night of May 9th Pearson led his motor battalion forward to recce Germans shortly afterwards. Pearson escaped from the island in a motor torpedo boat, dodging radio-controlled gliding bombs on the moonlit nights and lying up under camouflage nets in neutral Turkish waters during the day. After moving to SOE HQ at Bari in Italy he helped to plan operations in the Balkans.
In June 1944 he became Deputy Commander of 2nd Independent Parachute Bde Gp, serving in Italy and then the south of France as part of Operation Dragoon, before taking over as Deputy Commander of 1st Air Landing Brigade.
Escorting Major-General Fritz Freiherr von Broich, a German officer who had surrendered to him in May
the situation. He was well ahead of the leading tanks and his move was carried out under heavy shell and small arms fire. In May 1945 he accompanied the 1st Airborne Division to Norway to receive the German surrender and served as General Staff Officer Grade 1 (GSO1) at Div HQ. He was awarded the King Haakon VII Liberty Cross for his services. It was there that he met Aud Skjelkvale, whom he married two years later.
Having secured the observation necessary for the artillery to deal with the German 88mm guns, the divisional armour was able to continue its advance, and a large number of the enemy were taken prisoner. The citation for the award of an immediate bar to his DSO paid tribute to his “complete disregard of danger and magnificent leadership”.
He commanded 2 RB to the end of the North Africa campaign and then volunteered for service with Force 133/266, operating in the islands around Leros in the Aegean. While attempting to get supplies and equipment to them from neutral Turkey, he was arrested after landing at dawn from a caïque at the point where he was to meet his contact. He was imprisoned at Kusadasi on the Turkish coast but was swiftly released after the intervention of the military attaché from Ankara. This misadventure ended any chance of supplies and air power coming from the Turkish mainland to support the Leros garrison, with the result that it fell to the After the war, Pearson commanded the 1st and then the 7th Parachute Bns. He served in the War Office as GSO1 Land/Air Warfare before being selected in 1948 to attend the newly opened Joint Services Staff College, to which he was to return in 1953 as an instructor.
He spent the intervening years at HQ Malaya as GSO1 and at HQ Far East Land Forces as GSO1 (Plans) in the early years of the Malayan Emergency. In 1955 he was given command of 45th Parachute Brigade (TA). This led to command of
In April 1957 there was an attempted military coup in Jordan. The Brigade was in a tented camp in Cyprus and was scrambled at short notice to fly to Amman. When Israel denied overflying rights, all the aircraft were ordered to return Brigadier Pearson, however, with a nod to Nelson, reported that his radio had malfunctioned and flew on alone to Amman. After the Beverley landed at the airfield, an anti-tank gun was unloaded. Pearson and Maj Anthony Farrar-Hockley (later to become General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley GBE KCB DSO & Bar MC ) called for a table and chairs and were watched by a large, restive crowd while, with He was Colonel Commandant 1st Battalion The Royal Green Jackets from 1970 to 1977, Representative Colonel Commandant The Royal Green Jackets from 1973 to 1977, ADC General to the Queen in 1974 and Deputy Lieutenant of Hereford and Worcester from 1975 to 1985. Appointed CBE in 1959, he was knighted in 1967.
General Pearson is survived by two sons. One of them, Johnny, was also a serving officer in the Royal Green Jackets and also with BRIXMIS in Germany.
The operation could have turned out badly, but the use of bluff, moral force and the threat of reinforcements on the way deterred the rebels and played a notable part in putting an end to the uprising and preserving King Hussein’s rule.
In February 1960, Pearson became Chief of Staff to the Director of Ops in Cyprus for a short time before becoming Head of the British Military Liaison Mission (BRIXMIS/ Potsdam/East Berlin) in the Soviet Zone of Germany.
Pearson’s first appointment as a Major General was as General Officer Commanding 1st Division in BAOR (Verden) from 1961 to 1963, when the Army was being transformed into an all-regular force. He was Chief of Staff, NORTHAG, from 1963 to 1967, a most exacting appointment during Denis Healey’s Defence Reviews.
In 1967 he was promoted Lieutenant General and returned to the Far East as GOC FARELF; he was appointed Military Secretary the following year. After three years in Oslo as C-in-C Allied Forces, Northern Europe, in 1974 he retired from the Army in the rank of general.
A passionate countryman, in retirement he enjoyed field sports and sailing and devoted himself to the preservation of salmon stocks on the River General Sir Thomas Pearson
KCB, CBE, DSO & Bar born July 1st 1914 died December 15th 2019
Obituary The Daily Telegraph,
Verified London Office, The Rifles
