General Sir Geoffrey Howlett
Veteran of 40 years with the Paras and Commander-in-chief of Allied Forces Northern Europe
GENERAL SIR GEOFFREY HOWLETT, who has died aged 92, won an MC in the jungles of Malaya; parachuted into Egypt during the Suez Crisis; rose to become Commander in Chief Allied Forces Northern Europe based in Norway during the Cold War.
In August 1971 he was leading paratroopers in west Belfast when 10 civilians, including a priest and a mother of eight, died after being shot during an operation, and in 2019 he gave forthright evidence at the inquest into the deaths, bravely declining the protection of anonymity.
The events which led to the award of his MC occurred in February 1952 in the Malay state of Selangor at the height of the Malayan Emergency. Howlett was commanding an ambush party which killed one Communist terrorist (CT), and wounded another, and the following day he led his platoon through thick swamp and jungle to attack a reported CT encampment. The place turned out to be deserted, but on withdrawal they encountered a group of heavily armed CTS.
In the subsequent fighting the enemy were all killed and Howlett was awarded an Immediate MC, his aggressive and skilful leadership having proved a decisive factor.
A fellow officer credited Howlett with “great presence and authority combined with natural humility and a strong sense of the ridiculous, which gave him a singular capacity for right judgments and fair decisions”.
Geoffrey Hugh Whitby Howlett was born in India on February 5 1930. His father, Brigadier Bernard Howlett, DSO and Bar, was killed in Italy in 1943 when a long-range artillery shell landed exactly on target.
Young Geoffrey was educated at Wellington College and Sandhurst, and in 1950 he was commissioned into his father’s regiment, The Queen’s Own Royal West Kents. The following year, his first overseas posting was the operational tour to Malaya.
Howlett then enjoyed an interesting tour as ADC to the British Commandant in Berlin. Mid-1950s Berlin was at the forefront of the Cold War, with tension and intrigue never far from the surface, and Howlett’s time there would serve him well when he was promoted to senior rank.
In 1955 he transferred to The Parachute Regiment, joining the Third Battalion, and at the time of the Suez Crisis in late 1956 he was their Air Adjutant.
On November 5 1956, 3 Para were chosen for a parachute assault to capture El Gamil airfield (now Port Said International Airport). Howlett was responsible for ensuring that the aircraft were correctly loaded with troops from different companies, so that they arrived properly grouped together when they hit the ground. He jumped on the second lift, and the airfield and its surroundings were secured for the loss of four dead and 32 wounded.
Next, Howlett took part in anti-terrorist operations in Cyprus against the Greek-cypriot group Eoka, before returning to Britain to become an instructor at Eaton Hall and Mons officer cadet schools. He then joined 2 Para, becoming adjutant and then a company commander, serving operational tours in Kuwait and Bahrain before being selected to attend the RAF Staff College at Bracknell.
In 1964 he served on the staff of 16 Parachute Brigade Headquarters during an emergency UN peacekeeping tour of Cyprus. His diplomatic skills and straight talking were used to full effect when he became liaison officer between headquarters and the Turkish Cypriot leader Dr Kucuk.
Howlett then became training major of 15 Para – the Paras’ Scottish territorial battalion – before returning to 2 Para as second in command, with postings in the UK, Malaya and Hong Kong.
He attended the Combined Staff College at Latimer, Buckinghamshire, followed, in 1969, by appointment as military assistant to the Commander in Chief Allied Forces Northern Europe, based near Oslo.
In 1971 he assumed command of 2 Para and oversaw four operational tours in Northern Ireland. He himself was under fire on a number of occasions and in 1972 he was appointed OBE.
It was during that period that Howlett was travelling in a small group of vehicles which came under intense fire, several rounds hitting his Land Rover. The paratroopers, officers and men left the vehicles and mounted an immediate counter-attack on IRA gunmen, who fled the scene.
Returning to the vehicles, which had been guarded by the drivers, Howlett, seeing that his driver was profoundly shocked, put his arm around the young Para and told him: “Take it easy, take my seat and I’ll drive back.” Which he did.
Nearly 50 years later, in 2019, aged 89, Howlett found himself back in Belfast, summonsed to give evidence at the Ballymurphy inquests into deaths which occurred during “internment week”, August 1971 – Operation Demetrius, which entailed the sweeping up and detention of scores of men and women. Internment was intended to neutralise the threat from the IRA, but many of those detained had no links to the terrorists.
Because of his age, Howlett was told, he could avoid attending, but he explained that he felt a moral imperative to attend – even though it would mean he would be aggressively interrogated by lawyers.
He also declined the protection of anonymity, and after giving evidence at the hearing in Belfast, he asked the coroner’s permission to address the assembled relations of the dead. “I have enormous sympathy with you all,” he said, “… as relatives of those who were killed in this case on the ninth of August 1971.
“I know something about bereavement because my father was killed in Italy in the war when I was 13 and I wanted to know everything about how it happened as well.”
He described that day in 1971 as “the busiest” of his life, with internment having unexpected catastrophic results. “None of us realised,” he recalled, “that the day of internment and the next day or two would turn out to be such a rebellious period with as much rioting, shooting, petrol and nail bombing as it was. I don’t think any of us were quite prepared for the big change.”
He added: “The situation was never the same again… Following internment there had become an enemy out there who were definitely armed and firing at us.”
A regimental note from the time said soldiers viewed the incident in August as “inflicting severe casualties on the IRA”, but at the inquest Howlett conceded that “most if not all [the civilian victims] were not IRA”.
One of those who died from shootings on August 9 1971 was a Catholic priest, Father Hugh Mullan. Howlett said it was “quite obvious that Fr Mullan was not part of the IRA” and that he was almost certainly giving someone the last rites.
Howlett would later support calls for a statute of limitations on prosecutions of soldiers accused of offences during the Troubles, saying in 2022: “It has been more than 50 years. It is starting to become absurd.”
Between 1973 and 1975 he was an instructor at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London, after which he was appointed brigade commander of 16 Parachute Brigade based in Aldershot. In 1977 he became Director of Army Recruiting, and two years later he was promoted Major General to command
1st Armoured Division in Germany, a key component of the British Army of the Rhine.
In 1981 he was appointed Colonel Commandant of the Army Catering Corps, a position he held until 1989, and between 1983 and 1990 he was Colonel Commandant of the Parachute Regiment.
Howlett was described by a fellow Para officer as a “great, wise and unflappable” figure who at the time of his death was “considered the Father of the Regiment”.
From 1982 to 1983 he was commandant of RMA Sandhurst, where he was a fine role model for aspiring young leaders.
In September 1983 he was promoted Lieutenant General as General Officer Commanding South East District headquartered in Aldershot. Shortly afterwards he was appointed KBE.
In February 1986 Howlett was promoted General and returned to Oslo as Commander-in-chief Allied Forces Northern Europe, and he finally retired from the Army in April 1989.
Howlett played cricket for the Army, the Combined Services and, in his youth, for Kent Second XI. He was president of Army and Combined Services Cricket and was a stalwart of the Stragglers of Asia Cricket Club, and its president (1989-93). He much enjoyed his membership of MCC.
During a busy retirement Howlett served as chairman of the Leonard Cheshire Foundation (1990-95) and chairman and president of the Regular Forces Employment Association (19891997). He also chaired the Services Sound and Vision Corporation and the Governors of Milton Abbey School in Dorset as well as being a Commissioner of the Royal Hospital Chelsea.
He was also vice chairman of the Naval & Military Club, a Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Cooks.
Howlett and his wife Elizabeth bred Labradors and prize bantams and although he described himself as a “very small” racehorse owner he had a passion for the turf; he shot, and regularly attended regimental dinners, reunions and charity events.
Lt Gen Sir Hew Pike, who commanded 3 Para during the Falklands war, said: “I have never met anyone who did not want to explain how much they liked and admired this remarkable man.”
Geoffrey Howlett married, in 1955, Elizabeth, née Aspinal; she died in 2006 and he is survived by his son and two daughters.
General Sir Geoffrey Howlett, born February 5 1930, died April 21 2022