Charles Keightley

General Sir Charles Frederic Keightley, (24 June 1901 – 17 June 1974) was a senior British Army officer who served during and following the Second World War. After serving with distinction during the Second World War – becoming, in 1944, the youngest corps commander in the British Army – he had a distinguished postwar career and was the Governor of Gibraltar from 1958 to 1962. Since Keightley‘s death, there has been much scrutiny of the methods he employed in 1945 to send thousands of Cossacks and White Russians to their death at the hands of Stalin. Early life and military career Keightley was born on 24 June 1901 at Anerley near Croydon, the only surviving son of Rev. Charles Albert Keightley, the local vicar, and his wife, Kathleen Ross. His early education was at Marlborough College. He graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in December 1921 into the 5th Dragoon Guards (Princess Charlotte of Wales's) which through amalgamation with the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons became the 5th/6th Dragoons the following year. He was promoted lieutenant at the end of 1923 and captain in April 1932, having served three years as the regiment's adjutant. He attended the Staff College, Camberley from 1935 to 1936, and after a staff posting was in October 1937 appointed a brigade major of a mechanised cavalry brigade in Egypt. He was able, however, in November to take part in the coronation of King George VI in London as a member of the procession accompanying the King and Queen. In September 1938 his brigade became part of the new Mobile Division in Egypt commanded by the influential Percy Hobart.