Gerald Brunskill (British Army officer)

Major-General Gerald Brunskill CB MC (1897–1964) was a British Army officer who saw service in both of the world wars, serving as a junior officer in World War I and as a general officer in World War II.

Military career
Born the son of a barrister in Dublin in 1897, Brunskill received his education at Shrewsbury and at Trinity College, Dublin. He was commissioned into the Royal Sussex Regiment of the British Army in 1914, the same year World War I began in Europe. As with many others of his generation, his war service was spent mainly on the Western Front, where he earned the Military Cross in 1918 and was also mentioned in dispatches.

The war having ended in November 1918 due to the Armistice with Germany, Brunskill left the army, albeit only briefly, working as a businessman in London before being re-commissioned into the Royal Ulster Rifles in 1921. The next few years for him were spent as a captain, due to the slow rate of promotion in the army during the interwar period. He attended the Staff College at Camberley from 1924 to 1925 and then, almost a decade later, served as a brigade major with the North Midland Area from 1933 to 1936. His next major posting was in Palestine, then engaged in the Arab revolt, before going to India to take command of the first battalion of his regiment, then serving on the Northwest Frontier. He was still there when World War II began in September 1939.

In March 1941, after having returned to the United Kingdom, he was promoted to brigadier and given command of the 129th Infantry Brigade, part of the 43rd Division, a post he held until August 1942 when he was made Director of Special Weapons and Vehicles at the War Office in London. He was to hold this position until 1945, receiving a further promotion to the acting rank of major general in July 1943. This was made temporary a year later.

With the war now over he then received another appointment, this time as General Officer Commanding (GOC) British Troops in Thailand, a position he held only briefly, from January–May 1946. The following year he moved on to become Deputy Master-General of the Ordnance in India before being Deputy Chief of the General Staff, India, until his final retirement from the army in 1948. Having been demoted to brigadier in late 1947, he was granted the honorary rank of major general upon his retirement.

He was employed for eight years by the Medical Research Council in London. After that he was Commander of the Kent St. John Ambulance Brigade and deputy lieutenant for the county of Kent in 1962, shortly before his death in 1964.