Freddie De Butts
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Brigadier Freddie De Butts (17 April 1916–24 August 2005) was a British Army officer, formerly Chief of Staff of the Trucial Oman Scouts and the first Chief of Staff of the United Arab Emirates' Union Defence Force. He played a pivotal role in the formation of the United Arab Emirates in 1971.[1]
De Butts was born on 17 April 1916 in a nursing home in Ipswich to British army officer Frederick Cromie De Butts and Kathleen Primrose O'Donnell, who died eight days after giving birth. He spent his earliest years living in Guernsey with his two aunts, Kathleen and Charlotte until the war was over.[2] In 1920, De Butts' father married Sybil Katherine Beauchamp, who would become De Butts' godmother as well as stepmother. The family sailed to India that year with a governess employed to care for young Frederick, Miss Oakley. Originally posted to Quetta, the family spent the following three years in Jhansi in what was then the United Provinces.[2]
In 1923, De Butts returned to England and was home schooled in the care of an aunt of military friends of his parents. He then spent a year at Melbreck pre-preparatory school in Tilford, Surrey. He went on to study as a boarder at Crowthorne Towers preparatory school and then attended Wellington School.[2] He went on to read Modern History at Oriel College, Oxford in October 1934, where he also joined the Cavalry squadron of the University OTC. In 1936, De Butts undertook a six-week attachment to the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in Colchester.[2]
Army service
Awarded a third-class degree, De Butts was immediately commissioned second lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry at Colchester, arriving there in September 1937. In January 1938 he was posted to the First Battalion in Poona, India.[2] He was subsequently posted to the Suez Canal Zone as part of Force Heron, becoming an intelligence officer shortly after the outbreak of World War Two. He joined the newly-formed Western Desert Force in June 1940, being promoted to Major in September 1941.[3] Having fought in North Africa and Sicily with the Eighth Army, in February 1944 De Butts was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and posted to the Staff College at Camberley as an instructor. He was subsequently sent to serve on the staff in Germany and, following the end of the war, saw service in India and Malaya. Returning to the UK from Singapore, De Butts and his young family were shipwrecked when the Empire Windrush suffered an explosion in her engine room, losing in the process all of their personal property and effects.[4]