Eric Bols

Major-General Eric Louis Bols, (8 June 1904 – 14 June 1985) was a senior British Army officer who, during the Second World War, was most notable for serving as the General Officer Commanding the 6th Airborne Division during the final years of the war.

Born in Surrey in 1904, the son of Louis Bols, he was educated at Lancing College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Bols joined the British Army in 1924 and saw service in a number of areas of the British Empire during the interwar period, including Hong Kong and Shanghai, as well as Malta. He served as a Cadet Instructor at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and attended courses at the Staff College, Camberley on promotion to captain.

When the Second World War began in September 1939, Bols moved through several staff officer positions, serving in several institutions and Army formations before being promoted to colonel and taking charge of all training for the troops under the command of 21st Army Group and helping to plan Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy. Bols was then promoted again and commanded the 185th Infantry Brigade during the Allied advance through Western Europe, before taking over command of the 6th Airborne Division from Major General Richard Gale in late 1944. He led the division in the Battle of the Bulge, as well as Operation Varsity, the airborne operation to cross the River Rhine, then led the division into northern Germany until the end of the conflict. Canadian paratroopers captured the town of Wismar in the late days of the war, in order to stop the Soviet army from invading Denmark. Bols was the officer who met face-to-face with the Soviets in Wismar, insisting on allied hold of the captured city, contrary to Yalta conference agreements. He effected a temporary Soviet halt. In the meantime, Lübeck and Hamburg could surrender to allied troops, and finally Denmark was liberated by the allies under the command of Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery. After the end of the war Bols remained in command of the division in peace-keeping duties in the Middle East, and then retired in 1948 as a major general.

Early life Eric Bols was born in Camberley, Surrey, on 8 June 1904. His father, Louis Jean Bols, was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and was the son of the Belgian Consul stationed in Quebec and later London, Louis Michel Guillaume Joseph Bols. Louis Bols, who was a dual British and Belgian national, travelled around the world and mastered some foreign languages, before eventually meeting his wife and settling down. He served as an officer in the British Army during the First World War, acting as the chief of staff for General Sir Edmund Allenby for the majority of the conflict. Eric Bols was born when his father was attending the Staff College, Camberley, and was educated in several institutions.

Military career Early career

After attending the Royal Military College at Sandhurst he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Devonshire Regiment, his father's regiment, on 30 January 1924. and in 1927, Bols was sent with the 1st Battalion, Devonshire Regiment to China, first being stationed in Hong Kong but later moving to Shanghai, his battalion being tasked with helping to keep the peace in the region. However, he did not stay for very long in China, with his early career being marked by a series of rapid transfers from region to region, and by 1928 he was stationed in Malta, where he found himself playing polo with then-Lord Louis Mountbatten of the Royal Navy, who was also stationed on the island at the same time. From here his career progressed rapidly, appointed an instructor at the Signals School at Catterick Garrison from 27 June 1928 to 29 December 1931 and then becoming an officer of a Company of Cadets at Sandhurst from 6 May 1934 to 21 January 1935 and then to study at the Staff College, Camberley. He was also promoted to captain from that date, transferring to the King's Regiment (Liverpool), there being no vacancies in the Devonshires. having completed the staff course. On 30 August 1937 he was seconded to the staff of the Ceylon Defence Force with the local rank of major.

Not long afterwards, Bols was unexpectedly offered the command of the 6th Airborne Division by Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, commander of the 21st Army Group on the Western Front. Surprised by the news, he later claimed that, "I nearly fell backwards." Prior to this, Bols had not previously commanded a military formation as large as a division. Bols took command shortly before Christmas of 1944, superseding the previous General Officer Commanding (GOC), Major General Richard Gale, who had raised the division in May 1943 and commanded it during Operation Tonga, the British airborne landings in Normandy some six months earlier. He was granted the acting rank of major-general from 6 December 1944. Despite both divisions sustaining heavy casualties, Ridgway wrote about the operation, stating that:

After the division had crossed the Rhine, it then advanced through the North German Plain until it linked up with Russian forces at Wismar on the Baltic on 2 May, the first British unit to do so,

Post-war At the end of the war Bols retained the temporary rank of major-general (and his war substantive rank was increased to colonel)

Bols died at his home at Peppering Eye, near Battle in East Sussex on 14 June 1985 at the age of 81.