Michael Carver, Baron Carver

Field Marshal Richard Michael Power Carver, Baron Carver, (24 April 1915 – 9 December 2001) was a senior British Army officer. Lord Carver served as the Chief of the General Staff (CGS), the professional head of the British Army, and then as the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), the professional head of the British Armed Forces. He served with distinction during the Second World War and organised the administration of British forces deployed in response to the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya and later in his career provided advice to the British government on the response to the early stages of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Military career Early career Carver was born in April 1915, during the First World War, the son of Harold Power Carver, a cotton merchant, and Winifred Anne Gabrielle Carver (née Wellesley) He was educated at Winchester College and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, where he was awarded the King's Medal, which went to the highest-ranking gentlemen cadet in the order of merit. From Sandhurst, Carver was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Tank Corps of the British Army on 1 February 1935. After receiving special-to-arm training at the Tank Corps Depot in Bovington, Dorset, he joined the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Tank Corps at Farnborough, Hampshire, in October. He then attended a short course at the Royal Military College of Science before returning to his battalion. He was promoted to lieutenant on 31 January 1938. Soon after this promotion he went to Egypt with the 1st (Light) Battalion of his regiment, which, with the formation of the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC) in April 1939, became the Royal Tank Regiment (RTR), with Carver's battalion becoming the 1st Royal Tank Regiment.

Second World War He served in the Second World War, which began in September 1939, with Carver still serving in Egypt. In late December he was made a camp commandant at the headquarters of the Mobile Division (Egypt) which in February 1940 became the 7th Armoured Division. Three months later he was promoted to the acting rank of captain and was made staff captain with the divisional HQ. In this role he was responsible for organising the division's logistical support, a post he held during the early stages of the Western Desert campaign, fought mainly against the Italians, and for which he was later to be mentioned in dispatches, once in April 1941, and again in July.

In the aftermath of the campaign Carver was sent to Palestine where, from April to August, he attended the Staff College, Haifa, before returning to the 7th Armoured Division, now with the acting rank of major, initially as a Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General (DAQMG) and later as a General Staff Officer Grade 2 (GSO2). The duration of his stay was very short, however, as he was soon sent to Cairo as a GSO2 to help create a new corps HQ, XXX Corps, with which he served until August 1942, which included during Operation Crusader and in many of the most critical battles of the North African campaign in which the corps participated. During that time he was promoted yet again, to the war substantive rank of captain and temporary major, in November 1941. His performance as a staff officer during this period was recognised with his being awarded the Military Cross in September 1942, a month after his promotion to the temporary rank of lieutenant colonel at the relatively young age of twenty-seven. He also received a new appointment at this time, becoming GSO1, essentially chief of staff, of the 7th Armoured Division.

He was appointed Commanding officer of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment in April 1943, leading them in North Africa for which he was appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) on 4 May 1943 and in Italy for which he was awarded a Bar to his DSO on 24 February 1944. He was appointed commander of the 4th Armoured Brigade on 27 June 1944 after its previous commander, Brigadier John Cecil Currie, was killed in action. With his new appointment came a promotion to the acting rank of brigadier, making Carver, at just twenty-nine, the youngest of his rank in the British Army. and to colonel on 17 June 1954, He was then elevated to Chief of Staff in East Africa in October 1955 and appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 8 March 1957. After attending the Imperial Defence College during most of 1957, and it was in this role that he famously substantially reduced the size of the Territorial Army (TA).

Having been advanced to a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the 1966 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was made GOC Far East Land Forces with the rank of lieutenant-general on 28 July 1966, After being advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in the 1970 Birthday Honours, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff (CGS) on 1 April 1971 in which role he provided advice to the British government on the response to the early stages of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Having been promoted to field marshal on 18 July 1973, before retiring in October 1976. In July 1977 he became a life peer as Baron Carver, of Shackleford in the County of Surrey.

Retirement Carver was also Colonel Commandant of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers from February 1966, of the Royal Tank Regiment from January 1968, of the Bristol University Officer Training Corps from March 1972 and of the Royal Armoured Corps from April 1974.

In August 1977 he was appointed resident commissioner designate for Rhodesia with responsibility for ending the dispute over independence there but resigned after fourteen months of deadlock. He died on 9 December 2001 in Fareham, Hampshire.

Family In 1947 he married Edith Lowry-Corry, a granddaughter of Henry Lowry-Corry; they had two sons and two daughters. Lady Carver died in 2019. Carver's mother was related to Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington.

Books

Second to None: The Royal Scots Greys 1918–1945 (1946) Tobruk (1956, Pan Books) El Alamein (1962, Macmillan) The War Lords (edited) (1976, Weidenfeld & Nicolson) Harding of Petherton (1978, Weidenfeld & Nicolson) The Apostles of Mobility: The Theory and Practice of Armoured Warfare (1979, Weidenfeld & Nicolson) War Since 1945 (1980, Orion Publishing) A Policy for Peace (1982, Faber and Faber) The Seven Ages of the British Army (1984, Beaufort Books) Dilemmas of the Desert War: A New Look at the Libyan Campaign, 1940-1942 (1986, Indiana University Press) Twentieth-Century Warriors: The Development of the Armed Forces of the Major Military Nations in the Twentieth Century (1987, Weidenfeld & Nicolson) Out of Step: Memoirs of a Field Marshal (1989, Hutchinson) Tightrope Walking: British Defence Policy Since 1945 (1992, Hutchinson) Britain's Army in the 20th Century (1998, Macmillan) Imperial War Museum Book of the War in Italy: A Vital Contribution to Victory in Europe 1943–1945 (2002, Pan Books) The National Army Museum Book of the Turkish Front 1914–18: The Campaigns at Gallipoli, in Mesopotamia and in Palestine (2003, Sidgwick & Jackson)