Aubrey Williams (British Army officer)

The son of a British Army officer, Lieutenant Colonel D. E. Williams, Aubrey Williams was born on 19 May 1888 and was educated at Monmouth Grammar School.[1] He later entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the South Wales Borderers on 9 October 1907.[2][1] He was promoted to lieutenant on 9 June 1909.[3]

Williams fought in the First World War and received a promotion to the rank of captain on 22 October 1914.[4][1]

After seeing action in the Gallipoli campaign,[5] he served as a staff officer with the 30th Division on the Western Front, earning recognition with his appointment as a companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO).[6][7] He was wounded twice and was also mentioned in despatches five times during the First World War.[1]

Williams also saw action during the Waziristan campaign in late 1937 earning him a bar to his DSO in August 1938.[8][5]

He became commander of the 160th Infantry Brigade, part of the 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division, in February 1939[9] and, in April 1940, seven months after the outbreak of the Second World War, went with his brigade to Northern Ireland where the brigade was mainly involved in anti-invasion duties and exercises training to repel a potential German invasion of Northern Ireland.[10] He became General Officer Commanding 38th (Welsh) Division in the United Kingdom in May 1940 before retired in October.[9]

In retirement he was local President of the Royal British Legion on the Isle of Wight.[5]

• Smart, Nick (2005). Biographical Dictionary of British Generals of the Second World War. Barnesley: Pen & Sword. ISBN 1844150496.