| Biography | Sir Wilfrid Gordon Lindsell (29 September 1884, Portsmouth, England - 2 May 1973, London, England) was a British Army Officer.
On the outbreak of the Second World War, as temporary lieutenant-general Lindsell was appointed quartermaster-general of the BEF. After being evacuated from Dunkirk he returned to England to help reconstruct the British army. Establishing his headquarters at Kneller Hall, Twickenham, he set about his task with vigour. After a year's work he was selected by H. D. R. Margesson the secretary of state for war, for secondment to the Ministry of Supply under Sir Andrew Duncan and Lord Beaverbrook. His post was that of senior military adviser for the re-equipment of the army. He performed his task with such marked success that less than a year afterwards Britain had thirteen fully trained and equipped divisions in readiness to defend the country against a German invasion. In 1942 Lindsell was appointed lieutenant-general in charge of administration in the middle east, as one of General Montgomery's team to revitalize the Eighth Army.
Following the successful desert campaign, Lindsell was selected in 1943 to be principal administration officer to the Fourteenth Army in India in preparation for the attack against the Japanese in Burma led by General W. J. Slim. In 1945 Lindsell, or Tommy, as he was affectionately known, returned to England for attachment to the Board of Trade to co-ordinate the clearing of factories used for wartime storage, so that peacetime production could begin.
Lindsell was appointed KBE (1940), CB (1942), KCB (1943), and GBE (1946). The Second World War also brought him the US Legion of Merit (degree of commander) and three mentions in dispatches. He was made an honorary LLD by Aberdeen University. |