WW2 75 – 31 May 1945 – ‘No one could help liking him. He was straight as a die’: Major General Sir Henry Finnis KCB, MC (1890-1945), 12th Frontier Force Regiment
Continued from 19 April 1945 – A missing name.
LIEUTENANT DAVID HUBERT HARVEY-WILLIAMS MC (1926-45)
Royal Horse Guards (Household Cavalry Regiment).
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2023/12/ww2-75-19-april-1945-missing-name.html
Rawalpindi War Cemetery, Pakistan, where Henry Finnis was buried.
Only two Generals appear among the Budleigh-linked casualties of WW2, and perhaps typically, both had Indian connections. The town had a traditional connection with the subcontinent going back to the 19th century, as I found when I wrote my little booklet about the Victorian scientist and sponge expert Henry John Carter FRS, entitled The Scientist in The Cottage.
Of the two Generals, only Lancelot Dennys is listed on Budleigh Salterton War Memorial. The connection of Major General Sir Henry Finnis – known to his friends as Harry - is more difficult to establish, but his listing on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site suggests that his wife Cécile Violet D'Oyly Finnis (née D'Oyly O'Malley) lived in Budleigh Salterton.
Though he was born in India, his family originated from Dover. Steriker Finnis (1817-1889), his grandfather, was a builder and the owner of the town’s largest timber yard, but many of Henry’s relatives chose military careers rather than a life in commerce. An uncle was Admiral Frank Finnis (1851-1918).
Henry’s parents were Colonel Henry Finnis, CSI, CBE (1853-1929) and Mary Finnis, née Leahy (1859-1928). They had married in 1878. Colonel Finnis had been made Companion of the Star of India (CSI) in 1919 and been decorated a CBE for his work in the Royal Engineers during his time in the sub-continent.
Henry’s mother was the daughter of Dr John Leahy, a civil surgeon working in India. Of the couple’s children, three sons including Henry followed careers in the armed services. The eldest, Colonel Frank Alexander Finnis CB, OBE, was born in 1881 in Muree, India.
Valerie Finnis, photo © National Portrait Gallery, London
Four years younger was naval officer Commander Steriker
William Finnis (1885-1965). His
daughter, Henry’s niece, was the well-known
British photographer, lecturer, teacher and gardener Valerie Margaret Steriker Finnis
(1924-2006), later Lady Montagu Douglas Scott.
The South Front of Wellington College. Image credit: R.T. Peat; Wikipedia
All three sons attended Wellington College in Berkshire, noted for its military tradition having been opened in 1859 as a boys’ boarding school for the education of orphans of the British armed forces. Their father, Colonel Henry Finnis, had also been one of Wellington’s quite early pupils, being in the Hardinge dormitory from 1867 to 1871.
Members of Wellington College’s Hardinge House pose for the camera. Henry’s elder brother, Frank Alexander Finnis, is fourth from the left in the second row
Henry was in the Hardinge dormitory at Wellington from 1902 to 1908. He became a School Prefect, Head of the Hardinge dormitory, Captain of the 2nd XV in rugby, and a Colour-Sergeant in the Rifle Corps. He also competed for his dormitory in cricket and cross-country running.
The Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Image credit: Wikipedia
Henry’s father had attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in London, in preparation for a career as an officer of the Royal Engineers. After Wellington College, where he was a pupil attached to Hardinge boarding house from 1902 to 1908, Henry attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, which offered training for officers other than those destined for the Royal Engineers and the Royal Artillery.
He was commissioned on the unattached list for the Indian Army on 8 September 1909, and was appointed to the Indian Army's 72nd Punjabis on 12 November 1910. Early in the following year, on 22 February, he transferred to the 53rd Sikhs.
Major John Fortescue Finnis. Photo from the Collection of the National Army Museum
The Indian Army List for October 1914 records him
serving as a Lieutenant with the 53rd Sikhs Regiment, having been appointed on
22 February 1911. Interestingly, a Major John Fortescue Finnis had joined the
Regiment as one of two senior officers appointed on 10 March 1913.
When WW1 began in August the following year the Regiment was stationed in India at Kohat, in the North West Frontier Province, now a region of Pakistan. As a military force it was highly regarded. ‘Personnel excellent’, reported Major-General Frederick Campbell in a confidential report following his inspection of Kohat Brigade at this time.
‘Rank and file smart and well turned out,’ he continued. ‘First-rate officers. Interior economy is very satisfactory and due economy is practiced in regard to deductions for clothing. Discipline satisfactory. Signally excellent, Musketry satisfactory. Fire discipline good. The battalion works well in the field and is fit for active service.’
The Regiment received orders to mobilise at Kohat on 11 October 1914 and left for Karachi three days later. By early December it was in Egypt, tasked with improving defences on the Suez Canal. In July 1915 the 53rd Sikhs was moved to Aden, now part of Yemen. In a battle on 20 July at the town of Shaikh Othman near Aden the Ottoman forces were defeated.
Photo from the Collection of the Imperial War Museum
Henry and the 53rd Sikhs returned to Egypt on 10 September before a move to Mesopotamia – now Iraq – in early December 1915. Here there were further battles against Ottoman forces, including an attempt to relieve the garrison of Kut during which Major Finnis was killed.
A memorial plaque in St Leonard’s Church in Hythe, Kent, records how on 13 January 1916, aged 45, Lieutenant Colonel John Fortescue Finnis ‘died of wounds received in action whilst gallantly leading his regiment’.
His great-grandfather Robert Finnis was born in Dover in 1754 before moving to Hythe, where he ran a successful upholstery business, becoming mayor of the town just as Henry’s grandfather Steriker Finnis had been mayor of Dover.
Hythe is not far from Dover, and it seems that John Fortescue Finnis and Henry were distantly related. Both shared an Indian Army as well as a Kentish background. Twenty years older than Henry, John Fortescue Finnis was born in Burdwan, Bengal, in 1840, the son of Lieutenant Colonel John Finnis of the 2nd Punjab Infantry.
Henry too was wounded during this time in battles against the Ottomans. He was mentioned in dispatches twice, and was awarded the Military Cross. Meanwhile, after a siege of 147 days, the garrison of Kut surrendered on 29 April 1916. It would not be recaptured until ten months later.
'Bridge Building at Wellington Cadet College India', 1920. Photo from the Collection of the National Army Museum
A calmer
period came when in November 1916 he was appointed as an instructor at the Wellington Cadet College in India. More change in the following year
came when he married Cecile Violet D'Oyly O'Malley (1890-1976), the daughter of a distinguished Indian
Army officer.
Colonel William Arthur D'Oyly O'Malley CB. Image credit: www.britishempire.co.uk
Her father, Colonel William Arthur D'Oyly O'Malley CB, born
in 1853 as William O'Mealy later changed his name. He had been honoured with
the award of CB – Companion of the Order of the Bath – in 1909 following his appointment
as commanding officer of his Regiment. He had taken part in many military operations
to deal with hostile tribes on the North West Frontier in modern Pakistan, including
the Zhob Valley Expedition of 1890 and operations in Waziristan in 1894-95. The photo shows him in 1894, in command of a
squadron, soon after he joined the 1st Punjab Cavalry.
Henry’s time at the Wellington Cadet College ended in May 1919 with a posting as brigade major during the Afghanistan and North West Frontier Operations. A notable event that month for him and his wife Cecile was the birth of their son Neville on 26 May. In keeping with the family tradition he would follow a career in the Army, finally retiring from the Royal Artillery in 1960 with the rank of Major and the award of a Military Cross during WW2. Neville died at a care home in Lyme Regis, Dorset, on 15 November 2016.
The 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles in
Waziristan, 1923. Image credit: Wikipedia
In 1921 Henry transferred to the 52nd Sikhs - later
2nd Battalion of the 12th Frontier Force Regiment. Like his
father-in-law Henry also saw service in Waziristan, where there was a road
construction effort and military campaign conducted from 21 December 1921 to 31
March 1924 by British and Indian forces. These operations were part of the new
Forward Policy, which sought to reduce and eventually eliminate tribal
uprisings and tribal raids into settled districts by stationing regular troops
inside Waziristan, which would then be capable of swiftly responding to Waziri
rebellions.
The danger posed by such rebellions was certainly real enough. On 5 December 1923 The Times reported the death of another distant relative under the headline ‘Murder by Wazir raiders’. This was Major H.C. Finnis OBE, an Indian Army officer who had been appointed Political Agent of the Zhob District of Baluchistan.
A promotion for Henry came at this time when he was appointed as a General Staff Officer 2nd grade from 17 March 1922 to 1 June 1923. Further advancement came when he was appointed as commanding officer of the 3rd Royal Battalion of the 12th Frontier Force Regiment in November 1934. He went on to be instructor at Senior Officers' School in July 1936 and commander of the Khojak Brigade in May 1938.
Thousands of new recruits to the Indian Army from all over India at an Indian Army training center during World War II. Image credit: No. 9 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit; Wikipedia
During World War II he served as Military-Secretary at Army Headquarters, India from 1940 to 1943. It was ‘a colossal and most responsible task’ as C.A.M., a fellow-officer, a friend and adjutant in Henry’s regiment, wrote appreciatively in The Times of 20 July 1945. ‘The Army in India was being enormously increased, many new units being raised; Indians being advanced in large numbers, and formations being sent to Libya, Ethiopia, Iraq, Burma and Italy. Tied to his office stool, he longed to have a command on the front line, but he carried on. This difficult post, where so much tact, discrimination and fairmindedness are essential, was filled by him with the greatest distinction and integrity.’
We learn also from Henry’s friend C.A.M. how Cecile supported her husband at this stressful time. ‘In all this he was most loyally supported by his wife, who, like so many British women in India during these six years of war, shared all her husband’s labours: in the early critical years doing cipher work throughout the intense heat of the Delphi hot weather, day and night at G.H.Q., and later in the multifarious duties of an army commander’s wife, staying down with him throughout the heat on the plains of the Punjab.’
In 1943 Henry was appointed as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief North Western Army, with the rank of a full general. He was delighted to be commanding a region that he knew so well, but again there was enormous responsibility. His command over 21 months covered a huge area, 800 miles along the Fronter, and involved continuous touring and inspecting, hot weather and cold.
At a time of war there no hill-stations to escape the burning heat of the Punjab and frontier plains. Illness finally defeated him, and for his friends and fellow-officers, ‘killed on active service’ seemed to be a fitting description of his end on 31 May 1945. ‘Like so many other members of the services, he worked himself to death in his country’s cause,’ wrote C.A.M.
His death clearly saddened all those who had worked with Henry. ‘From the very first he stood out; not so much by his ability, which was quickly apparent, but by his singular straightness of character and his single-mindedness,’ his friend continued. ‘No one could help liking him. He was straight as a die, and this great quality stood him in good stead in his many appointments throughout his distinguished career.’
The Military Cross, created in 1914 in recognition of 'an act or acts of exemplary gallantry during active operations against the enemy on land'. Image credit: Wikipedia
Two months earlier, Henry and Cecile must have been thrilled by the award of a Military Cross to their son Neville, following in his father’s footsteps. Like so many of his family he attended Wellington College. During WW2, he was promoted to the rank of Temporary Major with the 3rd Royal Battalion Sikhs 12 Frontier Force Regiment while fighting in Italy. The announcement of the award of the Military Cross was made in the London Gazette of 8 March, 1945.
Neville would survive Italy and WW2 to enjoy peacetime, living until the great age of 93. Cecile has been recorded as living in Budleigh Salterton until 1976, when she died aged 86. For Henry, cut off relatively young at a mere 55, the war was not so kind.
The next post is for AIRCRAFTWOMAN 1ST CLASS FRANCES JOAN WATTS (1922-1945) who died in Torquay on 6 July 1945 while serving in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. You can read about her at https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2024/01/aircraftwomam-1st-class-frances-joan.html
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