Eric Bols

Eric Bols was born in Camberley, Surrey, on 8 June 1904. His father, Louis Jean Bols, was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and was the son of the Belgian Consul stationed in Quebec and later London, Louis Michel Guillaume Joseph Bols. Louis Bols, who was a dual British and Belgian national, travelled around the world and mastered some foreign languages, before eventually meeting his wife and settling down. He served as an officer in the British Army during the First World War, acting as the chief of staff for General Sir Edmund Allenby for the majority of the conflict. Eric Bols was born when his father was attending the Staff College, Camberley, and was educated in several institutions. ==Military career==

Early career After attending the Royal Military College at Sandhurst he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Devonshire Regiment, his father's regiment, on 30 January 1924. and in 1927, Bols was sent with the 1st Battalion, Devonshire Regiment to China, first being stationed in Hong Kong but later moving to Shanghai, his battalion being tasked with helping to keep the peace in the region. However, he did not stay for very long in China, with his early career being marked by a series of rapid transfers from region to region, and by 1928 he was stationed in Malta, where he found himself playing polo with then-Lord Louis Mountbatten of the Royal Navy, who was also stationed on the island at the same time. From here his career progressed rapidly, appointed an instructor at the Signals School at Catterick Garrison from 27 June 1928 to 29 December 1931 and then becoming an officer of a Company of Cadets at Sandhurst from 6 May 1934 to 21 January 1935 and then to study at the Staff College, Camberley. He was also promoted to captain from that date, transferring to the King's Regiment (Liverpool), there being no vacancies in the Devonshires. having completed the staff course. On 30 August 1937 he was seconded to the staff of the Ceylon Defence Force with the local rank of major. Not long afterwards, Bols was unexpectedly offered the command of the 6th Airborne Division by Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, commander of the 21st Army Group on the Western Front. Surprised by the news, he later claimed that, "I nearly fell backwards." Prior to this, Bols had not previously commanded a military formation as large as a division. Bols took command shortly before Christmas of 1944, superseding the previous General Officer Commanding (GOC), Major General Richard Gale, who had raised the division in May 1943 and commanded it during Operation Tonga, the British airborne landings in Normandy some six months earlier. He was granted the acting rank of major-general from 6 December 1944. Despite both divisions sustaining heavy casualties, Ridgway wrote about the operation, stating that: After the division had crossed the Rhine, it then advanced through the North German Plain until it linked up with Russian forces at Wismar on the Baltic on 2 May, the first British unit to do so, Post-war At the end of the war Bols retained the temporary rank of major-general (and his war substantive rank was increased to colonel) ==Later life==

In 1965, it was reported by The Times that the former Russian General and then Soviet Deputy Defence Minister Konstantin Rokossovsky argued in a journal article that Bols had attempted to use the 6th Airborne Division to 'infiltrate' Russian lines. Rokossovsky claimed that the division had manoeuvered behind Soviet troops advancing towards Lübeck, and Russian troops had only avoided opening fire on the airborne troops when they had recognized the British uniforms they wore. Bols died at his home at Peppering Eye, near Battle in East Sussex on 14 June 1985 at the age of 81. ==References==