France and Belgium The
Second World War started while Leese was still in India, as the Chief Instructor at the Staff College, Quetta. Each course usually lasted two years but had been reduced to a single year due to the outbreak of the war, with plans made to reduce it to five months to enable more staff officers to be produced in the rapidly expanding British and British-Indian armies. Despite this, and the fact that Leese was selected as a possible Commandant of the college, he was anxious to return to Europe where the fighting was sure to be. His wish was granted in March 1940 and he returned to England at the end of that month. Shortly after his arrival, he assumed command of the hastily raised
20th Independent Infantry Brigade (Guards), which was to participate in the ultimately doomed
Norwegian campaign although this did not happen. Due to the
German Army's
invasion of Western Europe, which began on 10 May, Leese received a signal ordering him to France and to report to
General Lord Gort,
Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the
British Expeditionary Force. He was assigned to act as Lieutenant General
Henry Pownall's Deputy Chief of Staff. Leese arrived at the BEF's General Headquarters (GHQ), then at
Arras, on the evening of the German assault. On 11 May, he was promoted to the
acting rank of
major general, after having been promoted to the acting rank of
brigadier just nine days earlier. Four days after his arrival, he established an Advanced Headquarters at
Renaix in order to be closer to the BEF, now stationed on the
Dyle Line. Over the following days, the BEF began retreating to a series of river lines and Gort's GHQ was moved to
Wahagnies. By 18 May, with the situation becoming worse by the day, Leese prepared an emergency plan for the BEF to
retreat to Dunkirk, although it was politically impossible to go through with the plan at that time. Events moved rapidly and GHQ relocated several times, eventually arriving at
La Panne,
Belgium, within the Dunkirk perimeter, on 26 May. Over the next few days, the staff worked frantically to oversee the
withdrawal and evacuation of the BEF back to the United Kingdom, following largely the same plan that Leese had designed. He himself was evacuated on 31 May. Throughout the campaign, Leese was "a model of cool, unruffled fortitude during the retreat to Dunkirk" and who "more than anyone, imposed some order on the BEF's withdrawal and evacuation" while booming with confidence. A few weeks after his return to the United Kingdom, and after relinquishing his acting rank of major general, and given command of the
West Sussex County Division that also included the 29th Brigade. A month later he was moved to become
General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the
15th (Scottish) Infantry Division. He retained command of the division until mid-June. At that same time, he was delighted to be selected to become GOC of the newly created
Guards Armoured Division during its formation and training. The division initially comprised the
5th and
6th Guards Armoured Brigades, both of which had three armoured regiments and a battalion of
motorised infantry, along with the
Guards Support Group that commanded two regiments of
field artillery, an
anti-tank regiment, a light
anti-aircraft (LAA) regiment and one battalion of lorried infantry. The armoured regiments of the 5th and 6th Brigades were all formerly infantry battalions of the
Brigade of Guards and had to be retrained, although this was hampered by poor equipment, while at the same time having to adopt new battle training techniques. "A forceful personality, Leese proved extremely energetic in getting what he wanted from the
War Office and then drove his men hard to create a thoroughly well organised division within a relatively short time." His rank was upgraded to temporary major general in November, and was made substantive in December. of
XXX Corps. Montgomery had formed a high opinion of Leese when he had been one of Leese's instructors at the Staff College in the late 1920s, and had been strengthened in this opinion by Leese's work during the Dunkirk evacuation. Leese commanded XXX Corps during the
Second Battle of El Alamein and for the rest of the
North African campaign, which ended in Tunis in May 1943, and was
mentioned in despatches for his services. After a short rest, XXX Corps then took part in the
Allied invasion of Sicily in July–August 1943 before returning to the UK, to prepare for
Allied invasion of Northwest Europe. A year after being promoted to the acting rank of lieutenant general, his rank was made temporary lieutenant general in September.
Italy on 26 July 1944. On 24 December 1943, Leese was ordered to Italy to succeed Montgomery as the Eighth Army commander. Leese discovered that the Eighth Army had reached its first enforced halt. It and Lieutenant General
Mark W. Clark's
U.S. Fifth Army (both of which formed the
15th Army Group, General Sir Harold Alexander) had bogged down in front of the German
Winter Line. Other than a minor action in mid-January 1944, his army remained static until May 1944. This allowed him to get to know the men and formations under his control. In May 1944, after witnessing Clark's Fifth Army engage in numerous attempts to break through the Winter Line, he directed his army during the
fourth battle of Monte Cassino. He then directed his army during Operation Olive, an assault on the
Gothic Line later in the year. Despite being a victory it fell short of expectations and did not bring an early end to the fighting in Italy. Leese disliked working with Mark W. Clark. His rank of lieutenant general was made permanent in July 1944.
Burma and the Far East In late September 1944, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the
Eleventh Army Group, based in India and directing operations in Burma, although he was not able to assume command until November by which time it had been renamed Allied Land Forces, South-East Asia (ALFSEA). Leese viewed the existing command structure as inefficient, and proceeded to appoint former members of his Eighth Army staff. The methods of the two staffs differed and the newcomers were resented. As Lieutenant General
William Slim, who commanded ALFSEA's
Fourteenth Army, expressed it in his memoirs "his staff... had a good deal of desert sand in its shoes, and was rather inclined to thrust Eighth Army down our throats." ALFSEA fought a successful campaign in Burma culminating with the recapture of
Rangoon in early May 1945, it having been lost in 1942 to the Japanese advance at the time. , GOC 19th Indian Infantry Division, Mandalay, 19 March 1945 Leese believed that Slim was very tired, considering his years of service fighting in Burma and having asked for leave once Rangoon had been taken, and proposed that he should be replaced by Lieutenant General
Philip Christison. The latter was selected as the potential replacement to Slim, due to his experience in
amphibious warfare that would be well suited for the next ALFSEA offensive that included a seaborne landing to recapture British Malaya. As a result, Leese chose Slim to command the new Twelfth Army, to deal with the less demanding task of mopping up remnant Japanese forces in Burma. Leese misread the situation and believed Slim was in agreement with these decisions. Slim reacted by telling his staff he had been sacked and wrote to Leese and General Sir
Claude Auchinleck, the
Commander-in-Chief India, to say he would refuse the new post and resign from the army in protest. Once the news circulated, there was mass-opposition within the Fourteenth Army. Without support from his superiors, Leese was obliged to reinstate Slim. The political backlash resulted in Leese being removed from command and replaced by Slim. ==Post-war==