A British Army Legend

Fire of Liberty
As I was doing through my daily browsing of the news and the various blogs, I came across a post by Iain Murray over at National Review's the Corner that noted the passing of the UK's General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley. As Murray notes, Sir Anthony was a decorated hero of the Korean War after demonstrating his courage under fire and his ability to keep his men focused on holding their position against a ten hour assault from the Chinese. Though he would win a Distinguished Service Order, Sir Anthony wouldn't receive this honor for many years to come due to the fact the Chinese took him prisoner throughout the war. As with most soldiers, Sir Anthony made it his utmost priority to give his captors as much hell as he could thus resisting their attempts to brainwash him. He also made some six harrowing escape attempts thus aggravating his captors and bringing on countless hours or even days of torture at the hands of the Chinese and North Koreans. While most men would break under such pressure, Sir Anthony would continue his battle against his jailer and would eventually be released in 1953 with the conclusion of the war(Well for the UK part - South Korea and North Korea never signed peace treaty and still considered in a state of war but enough on technicalities)thus allowing him to further his career in the military. Here's what the Daily Telegraph had to say about Sir Antony's post Korean War journey in the British Army:

After serving in Palestine, Farrar-Hockley returned to the Glosters and went with them to Korea. Following his release from prisoner-of-war camp, he attended Staff College before rejoining the Airborne Forces, serving as deputy assistant adjutant and quartermaster-general, then as brigade major of the 16th Parachute Brigade. He saw active service during this period in the EOKA campaign in Cyprus, the landings at Port Said in 1956 and the British intervention in Jordan in 1958.

The following year he became chief instructor at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, before taking command of the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment in the Persian Gulf in 1962. The greatest feat of arms of his career was, perhaps, his battalion's capture, in 1964, of the Arab Nationalist stronghold at Wadi Dhubsan deep in the Radfan mountains north of Aden.

The battalion was called upon to undertake a difficult 10-mile advance into mountainous enemy territory and then attack a highly inaccessible and strongly-defended rebel base. Helicopters were not available in sufficient numbers to permit an assault from the air, so his men roped themselves down the sheer sides of the flanking ridges and achieved complete surprise over the rebels in the gorge below.

During a hard-fought battle, Farrar-Hockley's Scout helicopter was shot down beyond his own lines. With some difficulty, he rejoined his battalion and, finding it pinned down, he launched a well-executed attack which drove the enemy from their position. This action led to the submission of the dissident Radfani tribes and to the award of a Bar to Farrar-Hockley's DSO.

After relinquishing command of his battalion in 1965, Farrar-Hockley went to the Far East to be Chief of Staff to the Director of Operations in Borneo, where he helped to organise secret operations inside Indonesian territory which brought about the end of President Sukarno's "Confrontation" with Malaysia.

I can assure you that we've probably have a lot of our servicemen fighting for our freedoms that have a lot of similarities to General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley. For the rest of General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley career and life see here and here.
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Also, Sir Anthony was a pretty good historian with regards to the Korean War. Now for those who want to know more about the Korean War, I recommend that you look at his books The Edge of the Sword(1954), A Distant Obligation (1990), An Honourable Discharge(1995).