Lord Bramall

Former head of Armed Forces

LORD BRAMALL, who has died at 95, was a former head of the Armed Forces and a veteran of D-Day.

He served during the Normandy Landings in June 1944 and held the position of Commander-in-Chief of UK Land Forces between 1976 and 1978.

He was made chief of the defence staff, Britain’s most senior military officer, in 1982 and went on to have a 26-year career in the House of Lords, where he spoke out repeatedly against the ongoing development of the UK’s nuclear weapons.

He used one of his final speeches before his retirement in 2013 to argue that a replacement for Trident was unnecessary.

His later life was overshadowed by false allegations of paedophilia and child abuse, which were raised in the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Lord Bramall’s cottage near Farnham, Surrey, was raided by around 20 police officers as he ate breakfast as part of a co-ordinated campaign that also targeted the former Home Secretary Lord Brittan.

Both were vindicated when the investigation collapsed. No charges were brought and Carl Beech, who made the allegations, was given an 18-year prison sentence earlier this year for falsely claiming he had been sadistically abused by figures from the worlds of politics, the Armed Forces and security services.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, personally apologised to Lord Bramall for the “great damage” the force’s investigation had caused him and his family.

Lord Heseltine used his tribute to Lord Bramall to refer to the affair. “His public humiliation following the scandalous allegations was one of the most disgraceful episodes of my political life,” he said.

“The country has lost a great patriot who deserved better from us.”

Field Marshal Edwin Noel Westby Bramall, an Eton graduate, served in nearly all major UK military campaigns between the Second World War and 1985.

After officer training at Sandhurst he was commissioned in 1943 as a second lieutenant in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.

Following the Normandy landings he served with the 2nd Battalion of his regiment in north-west Europe, receiving the Military Cross for bravery. Promoted to lieutenant shortly after the war, he saw time in occupied Japan from 1946 and became an instructor at the School of Infantry in 1949.

As a captain and later a major, he served in the Middle East before becoming an instructor at the Camberley staff college and then joining Lord Mountbatten’s staff.

But his career could have been very different. Born in Tonbridge, Kent, some said he should have made his living from first-class cricket. As it was, he captained a public schools team at Lord’s and later played for the Army. As commander of the British forces in Hong Kong at the age of 51, he was the last player to hit a century at the Victoria cricket ground.

He served as the president of Marylebone Cricket Club in 1988 and was made an honorary life president in 1997.

Known to his friends and family as Dwin, Lord Bramall married his late wife Dorothy in 1949 and they had two children.