Page 198 - They Also Served

Although Strickland excelled at his duties and quickly developed an empathy with Indian people, he was led astray by three older and more experienced officers while most of his peers were on leave in the UK. Persuaded to partake in a week-long card school, Strickland lost money and was eventually unable to pay his mess bill. Although this was a court-martial offence, the commanding officer thought so highly of the young subaltern that he wrote off the debt. However, Strickland was so ashamed that he resigned his commission and returned to England. Enlisting in the Royal Tank Corps, he excelled as a recruit despite spending two weeks in detention for going absent to visit his mother to explain his new circumstances. It was not uncommon to find ‘gentleman soldiers’ in the ranks (another famous example being T E Lawrence), people who, for a variety of reasons wanted to escape their past, and Strickland was soon promoted to corporal. When his regiment, the 4th Royal Tank Regiment, deployed to France with the BEF in 1939, he was already a sergeant. The unit was equipped with the heavily armoured but ponderous and poorly armed Matilda Mk-I tank.
On 28th May 1940, during the withdrawal to Dunkirk, he took part in a counterattack near Arras where he fought a large enemy armoured force to a standstill, taking 80 prisoners until his tank was disabled. He then made it on foot to the beaches and was evacuated. For his courage shown under fire, he was awarded the MM and his exploits were immortalised in a painting. Despite pressure from his regiment to ‘recommission’ him, Strickland had to go through the formal process, which meant attending the RAC OCTU, ironically based at the Royal Military College. This made him probably the only person to be commissioned from Sandhurst twice. He was also almost immediately deployed on operations and was thus unable to be invested with his medal.
Strickland fought in North Africa and Italy, eventually commanding the 145th Regiment RAC. Here, he utilised a captured German Panther tank painted in British markings and aptly named ‘Deserter’. He also commanded the North Irish Horse. Awarded the DSO, he attended an investiture in London where King George VI commented that it was undoubtedly the first time a MM and DSO had been presented together. Remaining in the army after the war, Strickland was not promoted to substantive lieutenant-colonel until 1955, after which he rose rapidly up the ladder. Serving for several years in Jordan as senior military advisor to the young King Hussein, he was promoted to brigadier in 1961 and major-general in 1966, serving for his final three years as chief of the Joint Services Liaison Organisation in Germany. Major-General E V M Strickland CMG DSO OBE MM died in December 1982.
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