Sir Gerald Walter Robert Templer KG GCB GCMG KBE DSO

This portrait of Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer by James Gunn (1958) hangs in the Officers' Mess of The 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment

Born in 1898, the son of Lieutenant Colonel Walter Francis Templer, Gerald Templer was commissioned into the Royal Irish Fusiliers, his father's regiment, as a 17-year old in 1916. Too young to be sent to the front, he was initially posted to the Faughs' 3rd (Service) Battalion in Buncrana. In October 1917 he was sent to the Western Front, eventually being assigned as a platoon commander in the 1st Battalion, part of 107 Brigade of the 36th (Ulster) Division. On 20 March 1918, Templer collapsed with Diptheria while serving with C Company, 1st Faughs and was evacuated a day before the German Army launched Operation MICHAEL, which resulted in the virtual annihilation of his battalion.

Between the wars, Templer served with the 1st Battalion in Persia (Iran), Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Egypt. He was an accomplished athlete, gaining a reserve place in the 120m Hurdles for the 1924 Paris Olympics (He did not compete). He attended the Staff College at Camberley from 1928-29 and, due to the lack of vacancies in his regiment, he was assigned as a Captain to 2nd Battalion the Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire) in 1930. Having survived a murderous confidential report in his tour as GSO3 with 3rd Division, Templer commanded a rifle company of The Loyals during the Arab Revolt of 1936 in Palestine, earning the DSO and causing him some years later to remark in a BBC interview, "I've felt terribly strongly all my life, from my youth, on racial and religious clashes – ever since my boyhood in Ireland. That was a feeling that which was strengthened by my service in Palestine in 1935–6, the Jew-Arab problems: I felt them bitterly in my heart". He transferred back to the Faughs as a captain in 1938 and on the outbreak of the Second World War was assigned as an acting Lieutenant Colonel GSO1 on the Military Intelligence staff of the British Expeditionary Force.

Having been evacuated from Dunkirk with the rest of the BEF, Templer's meteoric rise continued and in November 1940 he was promoted and given command of 210 Independent Infantry Brigade, with responsibility for the defence of the south coast of England between Lyme Regis and Poole. Having impressed his corps commander, one Lieutenant General Bernard Law Montgomery, in April 1942 Templer was promoted to substantive Colonel with acting rank as a major general and command of 47th (London) Infantry Division; in November of that year he was given command of II Corps but, soon tired of a role dominated by training and home defence, he asked to revert in order to command a fighting division.

Templer was given command of 1st Infantry Division, which was recovering from its operations in North Africa, but in October 1943 he was called to take over command of 56th (London) Infantry Division which was fighting hard in Italy and had just lost its GOC. He commanded the Division during their crossing of the Volturno and the landings at Anzio and was awarded the CB in recognition. In July 1944, while commanding 6th Armoured Division, Templer was severely wounded by a landmine. When he returned to duty it was on intelligence duties with 21st Army Group, including a brief spell as Director of the German Desk at the Special Operations Executive.

He remained briefly in Germany after the War, serving with the Allied Control Commission and came to public attention for the first time when he sacked the Mayor of Cologne, later the first Chancellor of West Germany, Konrad Adenauer for "laziness and inefficiency". It would not be the last time Templer would attract public controversy. In 1946 he was appointed Director of Military Intelligence and Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1948, promoting to General in 1950 having assumed the appointment of GOC Eastern Command.

In 1952 Churchill appointed Templer to the post of High Commissioner for Malaya and tasked him with resolving the Malayan Emergency then being waged by communist insurgents. The subsequent campaign became the model of how to conduct a successful counterinsurgency. Templer, who became known as The Tiger of Malaya, famously coined the first principle of successful counterinsurgency operations; "The answer lies not in pouring more troops into the jungle, but in the hearts and minds of the people." If hearts and minds became Templer's public legacy to the future conduct of counterinsurgency operations, he once again attracted controversy when The Daily Worker, an English communist newspaper, published images of decapitated, suspected communist guerillas. Private correspondence between the High Commissioner and the Colonial Secretary would later be published, in which Templer defended the practice of employing local Dayak headhunters to decapitate suspected communist guerillas. Many of the other techniques adopted by the counterinsurgency forces were controversial, including internment camps, forced relocation of ethnic minorities, collective punishments and the denial of food to the insurgency through widespread use of herbicides and other scorched earth techniques.

Promoted to a Knight Grand Cross of The Order of the Bath in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in June 1955, Templer was appointed as Chief of the Imperial General Staff in September and would advise Anthony Eden's Government during the Suez Crisis of 1956. He was promoted Field Marshal in November 1957 and retired in September 1958.

Field Marshal Templer became Colonel of the Royal Irish Fusiliers in 1946 and was recognised by several overseas awards, including the Legion of Merit (USA), the Croix de Guerre (France), the Order of Leopold II (Belgium), the Order of Orange Nassau (Netherlands) and Grand Commander of the Order of the Defender of the Realm (Malaya). He was Constable of the Tower and Lord Lieutenant for Greater London. On 15 June 1965 he was the Inspecting Officer at the official opening of Depot The North Irish Brigade at St Patrick's Barracks, Ballymena.

In retirement he devoted his energy to the foundation of The National Army Museum, where the library is named in his honour. Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer died on 25 October 1979. In 1981 the Society for Army Historical Research named their annual award the Templer Medal; This is awarded annually to the author of the book published during that year that has made the most significant contribution to the history of the British Army.