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Lionel Wigram (Sheffield, UK 1907 – Pizzoferrato Abruzzi Region, Italy, February 3, 1944) was a British soldier.

Early years

The son of Maurice Wigram and a native of Sheffield Yorkshire later moved to Surrey, Lionel Wigram was a London solicitor and property developer, in civilian life. Lionel Wigram was educated at King Edward VII School in Sheffield and Oxford University. He was married to Mrs. Olga Wigram née Jokelson and the couple had one child.

World War 2

In 1939 like many thousands of his contemporaries, Lionel Wigram, joined the British army at the outbreak of the war. Already commissioned in the Territorial Army, he went on active duty and was commissioned as a Captain into the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment). He was among the founders of the 47th (London) Infantry Division School of Battle Drill in 1941, and was appointed chief instructor at the new GHQ Home Forces Battle School at Barnard Castle early in 1942. Promoted Major, he was then assigned to the 5th  Army Corps deployed in Italy. After the Italian capitulation of 1943, British and American troops ,after the quick conquest of Sicily, rapidly moved up in the Italian mainland. The British and Commonwealth Army advanced on the Italian east coast, while the Americans had the west. However by winter 1943 the advance was at a standstill at the Gustav line, in central Italy. While in the Abruzzi region, Lionel Wigram quickly sympathized with Ettore Troilo, the Italian partisan leader, and successfully helped him to achieve the goal of having Italian paramilitary force fighting with the Allied Forces against the Germans. At the time the Italian forces were still viewed as a potential source of problems ,and although they were officially won to cause, the Allied had little or no confidence in them. Therefore he managed to overcame the diffidence of the British and American Military leaders who had in their mind to use the Italian troops being them regular or partisans as auxiliary forces. This change of mind into the allied military leaders lead to the creation of the Volunteer Corps of the Maiella Brigade. The joint military force of British and Italian was nicknamed, "Wigforce".

Death Major Lionel Wigram was killed in action, while leading the Wigforce during the hapless attack at Pizzoferrato village in the Abruzzi region; he is interred at Moro River Canadian War Cemetery, (XVI.B.9 Camp) in Ortona Italy.

Wigram’s Theory

At the outbreak of WW2 the British Army battle drill, developed during the First World War and revived by the then Lieutenant-General Harold Alexander in I Corps after Dunkirk, was a method of teaching infantry minor tactics. Wigram played the leading part in spreading this training technique to the whole of the Home Army. While studying his troops he concluded that on average a British Army platoon would almost invariably be comprised of 25% "gutful," men who would go anywhere and do anything, 50% "sheep," men who would follow closely behind if well lead, and about 25% "cowards," who quickly ran or became ineffectual once the fighting started.

References

M. Patricelli, Bandits of freedom. The extraordinary story of the Maiella Brigade “Soldiers and partisans without party without stellette”, Academic Press, Torino, 2005. Sir Denis Forman, To Reason Why, Abacus, 1993 (reprint 2008). ISBN 0-349-10507-3. Good sources for further reading in Harrison Place's 'Military Training in the British Army 1940-44' or Shepard's 'A War of Nerves'. Lionel Wigram, Battle Drill and the British Army in the Second World War. Harrison Place, T. See also