Philip Balfour
Sir Philip Maxwell Balfour was a senior British Army officer who achieved high office in the 1950s.Military career
Philip Balfour was born on 10 March 1898 and was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Artillery on 28 July 1915, alongside Cameron Nicholson and John Kennedy of the Royal Garrison Artillery. He served in World War I being deployed to France and Belgium. He attended the Staff College, Camberley from 1929 to 1930, alongside Neil Ritchie, Herbert Lumsden, George Erskine, John Edwards, John Winterton, Hugh Russell, Ivor Hughes and several other future brigadiers and general officers.
He also served in World War II, initially as a GSO2 before being made Commander, Royal Artillery of the 55th Infantry Division. From 1944 he was serving as Brigadier General Staff of John Crocker's I Corps throughout the North West Europe Campaign, and was awarded the CBE for 'gallant and distinguished services in Normandy' as a temporary brigadier.
After the War he joined the Control Commission in Germany in 1945 and then became Director of Civil Affairs for the Military Government, British Army of the Rhine in 1946. He was appointed General Officer Commanding 53rd Infantry Division later in 1946 and then GOC 2nd Division in 1947. Finally he became General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Northern Command in 1949; in that role he was critical of the standard of shooting in the British Army. He retired in 1953.
