Was a wartime SOE officer, who ran clandestine operations against Japanese forces in the Far East. One of the youngest brigadiers in the British Army in the Second World War, John Anstey had a distinguished career in the Special Operations Executive. In the war he played an important part in SOE’s immensely successful operations in the Far East.

Born in Devon and educated at Clifton and Trinity College, Oxford, John Anstey had joined After two years of regimental soldiering he was posted to the Staff College at Camberley, and then ostensibly to the headquarters of London District. In reality he had joined the clandestine world of SOE, into which he was personally recruited by Sir Colin Gubbins, to join his headquarters as a staff officer. The emphasis was on liaison with the French. In March 1943 he was dispatched on the Massingham Mission, as chief staff officer to Allied HQ in Algiers. In due course he commanded the unit and took it to the South of France in August 1944, as part of Operation Dragoon, to liaise with Free French Special Forces and the Resistance.

In November 1944 he was posted as a brigadier to HQ South East Asia Command, as deputy commander of Force 136 under the renowned Colin Mackenzie.

As such he was much involved in the great success of SOE in the Far East, coping with the vast expansion of its operations into Burma, Siam and French Indo-China and ensuring that its organisation was adequate to the increased scale of its activities

The most successful operation occurred in June 1945 when the Japanese were retreating fast down the river valleys, southwards through Burma. General Sir William Slim’s 14th Army was pursuing Japanese units in a race for such strategic towns as Rangoon and Toungou. At this point SOE’s guerrilla army, raised from eager hill tribes such as the Karens, was able to slow the Japanese through ambushes and by directing pinpoint Allied bombing attacks on to strong points, artillery positions and troop concentrations.

These Burma operations earned Anstey his appointment as CBE. After the hostilities Anstey stayed on to preside over the winding up of SOE in the Far East, and was briefly its commander, in September and October 1945. For his work during this campaign he was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the Légion d’honneur, the Croix de Guerre avec Palme and the American Legion of Merit.

Information from the PRO file HS 9/41/5.