Frederick Hotblack

Major-General Frederick Elliot Hotblack, (12 March 1887 – 9 January 1979) was a senior British Army officer who fought in the First World War as an early member of the Tank Corps (later the Royal Tank Regiment) and commanded the 2nd Armoured Division in the early part of the Second World War.

Military career

Hotblack was commissioned into the Norfolk Regiment in 1915 and served in the First World War as an intelligence officer in France before transferring to the then "Heavy Branch" of the Machine Gun Corps (later the Royal Tank Corps) in 1916. In November, while a temporary captain, he guided a tank to its objective by walking ahead of it despite enemy fire. For this action he was awarded the DSO. On the 23rd, he took control of infantry who had lost their officers and with tanks organised an attack – earning a Bar to his Distinguished Service Order. The citation for his Bar, appearing in The London Gazette in July 1918, reads as follows:

Hotblack took staff officer positions for the remainder of the war. He was awarded the Military Cross for "conspicuous gallantry, initiative and devotion to duty" in September 1918. While assessing the front, he found a German position blocking the advance and organised two tanks into action against it, riding in one of them himself. Despite being injured during the attack, after the tanks were knocked out he got the wounded to safety and arranged infantry for a defence against a counterattack.

After the war Hotblack attended the Staff College, Camberley, from 1920 to 1921, and served in the War Office before becoming brigade major of 1st Rhine Brigade in 1921. and then, following an accident in April 1940, being invalided out of the army in 1941.