Eliot Antony Brett-James (24 April 1920 – 25 March 1984) was a British military historian.[1]
Early life and career
He was the son of Major Norman G. Brett-James (1879-1960), a schoolmaster and authority on
Middlesex, and his wife Gladys Mary Constance (nee Reed).[2] He was educated at
Mill Hill School, where his father taught and had himself been a pupil. He served in the
Second World War as Second Lieutenant in the Royal Signals (1941) and with the 5th Indian Division of the
Royal Signals in the
North Africa campaign. He commanded the
9th Infantry Indian Brigade Signals in Burma, where he helped defeat the Japanese in the
Arakan and
Imphal campaigns.[1]
In 1961 he was appointed as lecturer in military history at
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and from 1970 until 1980 he was Sandhurst's Head of War Studies.[1]
Brett-James authored works on military history, principally on the
Napoleonic Wars.[1]
Works
Report My Signals (London: Hennel Locke, 1948).
Ball of Fire: The
5th Indian Division in the Second World War (Aldershot: Gale & Polden, 1951).
The Triple Stream: Four Centuries of English, French, and German Literature, 1531-1930 (Bowes & Bowes, 1953).
1812: Eyewitness Accounts of Napoleon's
Defeat in Russia (London: Macmillan, 1966).
Edward Costello: The
Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns (London: Longmans, 1967), editor.
The British Soldier in the Napoleonic Wars, 1793–1815 (London: Macmillan, 1970).
Europe Against Napoleon: The
Leipzig Campaign, 1813, From Eyewitness Accounts (London: Macmillan, 1970).
Life in Wellington's Army (London: Allen and Unwin, 1972).
The
Korean War 1950–53: An Exhibition to Commemorate the Armistice in Korea, 19 July 1953 (Department of War Studies and International Affairs and the Central Library, 1976).
Conversations with
Montgomery (William Kimber, 1984).
References
^
abcde'Mr Antony Brett-James', The Times (27 March 1984), p. 16.
^The Hendon and Finchley Times, "Hendon's Debt to a Great Historian; Sudden Death of Major N. G. Brett-James", Friday, May 27, 1960