Maj Gen Peter Benson
Career officer who arranged live cat drops over Malayan jungle
MAJOR GENERAL PETER BENSON, who has died aged 93, was Director General of Transport & Movements (Army) from 1976 to 1978.
Peter Herbert Benson was born in Swansea on October 27 1923 and educated in Wales. In 1944 he joined the South Wales Borderers and was commissioned into the regiment the following year. He served with the 1st Bn in Palestine and Cyprus before being transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) with a Regular Commission in 1948. An appointment as adjutant to the RASC Highland District followed.
During the Malayan Emergency in the early 1950s he commanded the Kuala Lumpur detachment of 55 Air Despatch Company. There were rats in the forts in the jungle where the terrorists were being hunted. The police were given the task of rounding up stray cats, and Benson arranged for these to be parachuted in to the troops to combat the infestation. He was appointed MBE in 1954.
Although unassuming in character, Benson was an extremely capable leader. His high standards, example and support encouraged others to give of their best and from early in his career he was marked for high rank.
Between 1957 and 1961 he attended courses at the Staff College, Camberley, the Royal Military College of Science and the Joint Services Staff College. He commanded 15 Air Despatch Regiment during the Borneo Campaign and returned to Camberley in 1968 on the directing staff, before taking up a similar appointment at the Australian Staff College.
Later appointments included a spell at the MoD. Promoted brigadier in 1971, he commanded 2 Transport Group Royal Corps of Transport (RCT) before commanding the Australian, New Zealand & UK Support Group (ANZUK) in Singapore as senior British officer. He led the UK planning team in the task of reorganising the British presence in Singapore on the break-up of the ANZUK Force. He was advanced to CBE in 1974 and moved to Rheindahlen, Germany, that year on being appointed Chief Transport and Movements Officer BAOR. In 1978, at the end of his appointment as Director General of Transport & Movements, he retired from the Army after 34 years. He and his wife settled at Seaborough in Dorset.
Representing the Corps and the Army at golf, he was runner-up in the Army Championships in 1952, won the General’s Cup in 1987 and 1988 and was president of the Army Officer’s Golfing Club from 1993 to 1996. He was also an enthusiastic shot and fly fisherman.
He was colonel commandant of the Royal Corps of Transport from 1978 to 1990 and chaired the Army Benevolent Fund Grants Committee from 1980 to 1992. He took an active interest in the Corps’ Volunteer Reservists, having seen their exceptional value when he commanded 2 Transport Group and later when visiting RCT TAVR units during their training in BAOR. He was appointed Honorary Colonel of 161 Regiment RCT in 1975.
From 1981 to 1988 he was a member of the Lord Chancellor’s panel of independent inspectors at the departments of Environment and Transport, which reviewed the provision of new roads.
Benson researched the history of the Church of St John, Seaborough, and organised its restoration. He and his wife, Betty (née Ashmore), whom he married in 1949, were involved with the Abbeyfield Society, which provides sheltered housing. They established an Abbeyfield home at Beaminster, having arranged funding, building and management. She was appointed MBE in 2003 and predeceased him; he is survived by their son and daughter. Major General Peter Benson, born October 27 1923, died October 27 2016