Post-war
None of the main parties' actions in the Slim affair show up well in retrospect. Richard Mead in Churchill's Lions suggests that Leese was naive, Slim petulant and Mountbatten devious. However, it was Leese's career that suffered and he returned to the UK to be GOC-in-C Eastern Command, a significant downward move having been one of only three army group commanders in the British Army. His promotion to full general is believed to have been blocked by Mountbatten and he retired from the army in January 1947 and became a noted horticulturist, writing books on cacti and keeping a well noted garden at his house, Lower Hall in Worfield, Shropshire. Although a keen cricketer, he had only modest success as a batsman in the 1914 Eton XI and was relegated to 12th man for that year's Eton v Harrow match, but was President of the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1965. He served as High Sheriff of Shropshire in 1958.
Following amputation of his right leg in 1973, Leese moved into Wales into a house called Dolwen at LLanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, near Oswestry. He died there after a heart attack on 22 January 1978, aged 83, and was buried at Worfield parish church.
Read more about this topic: Oliver Leese
Famous quotes containing the word post-war:
“Much of what Mr. Wallace calls his global thinking is, no matter how you slice it, still “globaloney.” Mr. Wallace’s warp of sense and his woof of nonsense is very tricky cloth out of which to cut the pattern of a post-war world.”
—Clare Boothe Luce (1903–1987)