Pierse Joseph Mackesy

Major General Pierse Joseph Mackesy, (5 April 1883 – 8 June 1956) was a British Army officer who, early in the Second World War, led the attempt to recapture Narvik in April–May 1940 in the ill-fated Norwegian campaign.

Early life
Mackesy was the son of Lieutenant General William Henry Mackesy, and was educated at St Paul's School, London, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was commissioned into the Royal Engineers as a second lieutenant on 23 August 1902.

Military career
Mackesy became a survey specialist in the Gold Coast (Ghana) in 1911. The first eighteen months of his First World War service were in West Africa. Thereafter he served in France, where he was awarded the Military Cross. As a captain he was Officer Commanding 518th (1/4th London) Field Company, Royal Engineers, from 1 June 1917 to 22 March 1918.

A staff officer with the North Russia Relief Force in 1919, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order before joining the Military Mission to South Russia in 1920. A student at the Staff College, Camberley, between 1920 and 1921, he married in 1923 and, after a variety of postings at home and abroad—including service at the Staff College, Quetta as a General Staff Officer Grade 2 (GSO2) —he was appointed to command the 3rd Infantry Brigade at Borden in 1935. In Palestine between 1935 and 1938, he was promoted major general in 1937 and, appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1938. He became General Officer Commanding 49th (West Riding) Division in May 1938. He was also an adviser to the New Zealand government on defence. He returned to England at the start of the Second World War and re-assumed command of his division.

Destined to be sent to France to form part of Lieutenant General Ronald Forbes Adam's III Corps of the British Expeditionary Force, 49th Division was instead held at home in readiness for operations in Scandinavia. As the Russo-Finish 'winter war' only interested the British government to the extent that it offered a pretext for interrupting the traffic of iron ore to Germany, 'Pat' Mackesy, with his experience of war in arctic conditions, was an obvious choice as commander of an expeditionary force. In the event British intervention in Scandinavia happened not, as was planned, to forestall German action but as a response to the German invasion of Norway. Mackesy, with one infantry brigade constituting 'Avonforce', was sent to invest the port of Narvik.

Enraging Prime Minister Winston Churchill by refusing to commit his troops to "the sheer bloody murder" of an "arctic Gallipoli", Mackesy was recalled home and, amidst Churchillian mutterings about his "feebleness and downright cowardice", was spared a court-martial but never held command again.

Later life
Retired from the army in November 1940, Mackesy served for a while on various War Office committees and was an occasional contributor to the Daily Telegraph. Considered a drunkard and a security risk by General Sir Alan Brooke, his mail was regularly intercepted. A Southwold borough councillor from 1946, he was subsequently mayor of the town on two separate occasions, as well as being a member of the East Suffolk County Council.

His son, Piers Mackesy, was a noted military historian.