Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Fleetwood Hesketh (28 July 1902 – 14 November 1987), born Roger Bibby-Hesketh, was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Southport from 1952 to 1959.
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Early life
Roger Bibby-Hesketh was the first of six children born to Major Charles Hesketh Fleetwood-Hesketh (1871–1947) and his wife Anne Dorothea (née Brocklebank) Fleetwood-Hesketh (1877–1940). His mother died in the torpedoing and sinking of the British ocean liner SS City of Benares in September 1940, along with 257 others including 81 children.
Hesketh was educated at Eton from where, in 1922, he was commissioned into the Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry as a 2nd Lieutenant. He attended university at Christ Church, Oxford, and was called to bar in 1928 at the Middle Temple.
Second World War
During the Second World War, in February 1940, then at the rank of Major, he transferred to the Royal Artillery from the Yeomanry.
As Lieutenant Colonel, Fleetwood-Hesketh was a member of Ops (B), the deception section of SHAEF that helped plan Operation Fortitude, a key portion of Operation Bodyguard, the deception plan covering the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944. He wrote a history of his role and the operation that was published after his death.