Leslie Hollis

For the Australian politician, see Leslie Hollis (politician).

General Sir Leslie Chasemore Hollis, KCB, KBE (9 February 1897 – 9 August 1963) was a Royal Marines officer who served as Commandant General Royal Marines from 1949 to 1952.^[2]

Sir Leslie Hollis
General Sir Leslie Hollis, pictured here in 1946 when he was a major general
Nickname(s)	"Jo"[1]
Born	(1897-02-09)9 February 1897 Bath, Somerset
Died	9 August 1963(1963-08-09) (aged 66) Cuckfield, Sussex
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service / branch	Royal Marines
Years of service	1914–1952
Rank	General
Unit	Royal Marine Light Infantry
Commands	Commandant General Royal Marines
Battles / wars	First World War Second World War
Awards	Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire Legion of Merit (United States)

Military career

Hollis was commissioned into the Royal Marine Light Infantry in 1914 and served in the First World War in the Grand Fleet and the Harwich Force.^[3]

A convalescent Winston Churchill meets the outgoing and incoming Supreme Commanders in the Mediterranean, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to Churchill's right, and Henry Maitland Wilson, to his left. Behind them stand (from left to right), John Whiteley, Air Marshal Arthur Tedder, Brigadier G. S. Thompson, Admiral Sir John Cunningham, unknown, Sir Harold Alexander, Captain M. L. Power, Humfrey Gale, Leslie Hollis, and Eisenhower's chief of staff, Walter Bedell Smith.

Between the wars he attended the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, from 1927 to 1928,^[2] and later served on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief Africa Station and of the Plans Division at the Admiralty before being appointed assistant secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence in 1936.^[3]

He served in the Second World War as senior assistant secretary in the War Cabinet Office.^[3] He was present at virtually every major decision during that period, attending all the major conferences—Washington, Cairo, Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam—and was instrumental in establishing what became known as the Cabinet War Rooms (now known the Churchill War Rooms).^[4]

After the war Hollis became deputy secretary (military) to the Cabinet in 1947 and Commandant General Royal Marines in 1949.^[3][2] He was credited with saving the Royal Marines from being disbanded^[5] and retired in July 1952.^[6]

References

1. Mead 2007, p. 206.
2. "Royal Marine officer histories". Unit Histories. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
3. Sir Leslie Chasemore Hollis Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives
4. "This Secret Place: War Cabinet Rooms". Reader's Digest. December 1965. Archived from the original on 14 June 2016. Retrieved 10 November 2018 – via World War Two - The Land War.
5. The corps that cheated death Times Education Supplement, 31 August 2001
6. "No. 39622". The London Gazette. 12 September 1952. p. 4299.

Bibliography

• Mead, Richard (2007). Churchill's Lions: a biographical guide to the key British generals of World War II. Stroud (UK): Spellmount. ISBN 978-1-86227-431-0.

Further reading

• Hollis, Leslie One Marine's Tale, published 1956
• Hollis, Leslie The Captain General. A life of H.R.H. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, KG, Captain General, Royal Marines, published 1961
• Leasor, James; Hollis, Leslie (1959). War at the Top; based on the experiences of General Sir Leslie Hollis. London: Michael Joseph. OCLC 385375.

External links

• Generals of World War II
• Royal Marine (RM) Officers 1939−1945

Military offices
Preceded by Sir Dallas Brooks	Commandant General Royal Marines 1949–1952	Succeeded by Sir John Westall