Philip Gregson-Ellis

Major-General Philip George Saxon Gregson-Ellis, (31 August 1898 – 20 October 1956) was a senior British Army officer who saw active service during both the First World War and the Second World War, where he commanded the 5th Infantry Division during the Italian Campaign in 1944.

Military career Born in Edinburgh in August 1898, and coming from a military family, Philip Gregson-Ellis was educated at Eton College and later entered the Royal Military College at Sandhurst during the First World War. It was from here that he was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the British Army's Grenadier Guards in December 1917, and with whom he saw service on the Western Front.

He remained in the army after the war, and, during the interwar period, attended the Staff College at Camberley from 1928 to 1929 and, after serving as brigade major of the 5th Infantry Brigade in 1931, served in the same role with the 1st Guards Brigade from 1932 to 1934. He was then appointed an instructor at the Staff College in 1937, where he would remain for another two years.

General Sir Harold Alexander with Major General Lucian Truscott and other senior Allied commanders at Anzio, Italy, 5 May 1944. Major General John Hawkesworth is pictured on the far right wearing a parachutist helmet, and to the left of him is Major General Philip Gregson-Ellis.

Gregson-Ellis served in the Second World War as a General Staff Officer with the British Expeditionary Force in France before becoming Commanding Officer of the 2nd Battalion, Grenadier Guards in 1940.