Obituary Major General (Retd) Pat Lee CB MBE Scribe: Colonel Peter Gibson (Retd)
Major Lee commanding 16 Parachute Workshop as part of UN contingent in Cyprus
Brigadier Lee at his desk in Headquarters REME Training Centre, Arborfield Major General Pat Lee died peacefully in a Taunton care home on 13th March 2022, two days before his birthday. Pat was born in 1929 in Torquay. At the start of WWII, the 10 year old Pat was filling sandbags on the beach at Paignton, which were used to protect key buildings in the town. At age 14 he won a scholarship to board at Kings School, Canterbury which, very soon afterwards, was evacuated to Cornwall. Here he joined the school’s Officer Training Corps. The school eventually returned to Kent. The key event for Pat was to be the right-hand marker of the Schools Guard of Honour for King George VI, when he, Queen Elizabeth and the two Princesses came to present The Royal Charter in July 1946. In 1947, the Army insisted that officer candidates should serve in the ranks before attending Sandhurst. So, having passed No.2 War Office Selection Board in Horsham; been checked medically and physically at the British Military Hospital in Greenwich; and satisfied some officers of his suitability for a place at the newly opened Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst; Pat was “called up”. Having completed basic training, Pat was sent to the Depot REME in Arborfield where he was taught platoon tactics and visited various REME units. Pat finally joined Intake 2 at Sandhurst. One of the more memorable events of the 18 months at Sandhurst was going to London, spending the night in a disused tube station and the next day lining Whitehall for the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip in November 1947. Pat was commissioned on 22 December 1948 and posted as a Platoon Commander to 2 Training Battalion REME in Honiton. Eight months later, he moved to Shrivenham to join No 4 Young Officers Degree Course. While at Shrivenham he not only learned to parachute but also married 2/Lt Peggy Chapman, a WRAC who was serving in the Shrivenham WRAC Company. 1953 and 1954 were taken up by Practical Engineering Training in London. Pat and Peggy rented a flat in Hampstead but, being under the approved
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marrying age of 25, Pat received no marriage allowance with the result that Peggy had to work to feed them. Postings to 2 Station Workshop in Malaya and to 7 (Queen’s Own) Hussars in Hong Kong and UK, followed. In 1959 came a posting to 16 Para Workshop as Second in Command. After a quick refresher parachute course at Abingdon, Pat flew out to Cyprus to join the unit on Nicosia airfield. Shortly after arriving, the Workshop Commander returned to England on compassionate grounds and Pat found himself in command. The complete Brigade then moved by air to Jordan, although the workshop Stores Section was sent by Tank Landing Craft through the Suez Canal. Finally, the Brigade returned to UK via Beirut, and after arriving back in Aldershot, Pat handed over to the new Commander. Throughout 1960, Pat attended Staff College, while he and Peggy lived in a married quarter in Kings Ride, Camberley. After Staff College, came a posting to the Directorate of Staff Duties in the MOD. The Directorate was located in the old War Office building opposite Horse Guards. Pat’s branch, SD4, was responsible for manpower planning for an army of 182,000. However, as an initial task he was given the job of totting up the number of B vehicles the Army needed. He said later that he had no idea if anyone ever bothered to look at it, let alone use it for any purpose. The real purposeful job was to update the manpower figures, study every option of Army size, and organization changes, and so on. The Army Air Corps was in the process of being formed which was a challenge and needed straight forward skulduggery to get other Corps and Regiments to agree to transfer men to the new light blue beret Corps. Pat remembered that after the first six months, he could write out the Army’s Order of Battle from memory with the manpower figures to go with each unit. He was awarded an MBE for all his achievements and Peggy and the children went up to Buckingham Palace to see the Queen award it. From sitting at a desk in Whitehall, Pat returned to the Airborne world as Officer Commanding 16 Parachute Workshop – after another parachute refresher course, of course. 16 Parachute Brigade had, once again, been ordered back to Cyprus to keep the peace after Turkey’s invasion of the northern part of the island and Pat had to fly straight out to Cyprus to catch-up with the Workshop advance party. When the United Nations Security Council decided to take over responsibility for keeping the Greeks and Turks apart, the Workshop became the first REME unit to wear the blue berets. After commanding 16 Parachute Workshop, Pat attended the Joint Services Staff College at Latimer. From Latimer he was posted as the Military Assistant to the Master General of the Ordnance (MGO), General Sir Charles Jones. Most of Pat’s time with him was spent arranging and accompanying him on a large round of farewell visits to the vast “empire” he controlled. After 15 months with the MGO, Pat was posted to the Army Staff College as a member of the Directing Staff. After Camberley, a posting to Germany had become inevitable and Pat was sent to be the Commander REME of 2nd Division in Nor th Rhine
