Major-General William Bate RIP

Kyt · Mar 7, 2008

Major-General William Bate obituary - Times Online

Bill Bate was an outstanding wartime staff and supply officer. Commissioned into the Royal Indian Army Service Corps in 1941, his civilian experience of cost-accounting proved useful when organising air supply for Major-General Orde Wingate’s

“Chindit” long-range penetration brigades in Burma in early 1944, then for the British 36th Division in the north of the country.

When four of the five Chindit brigades were switched to the control of General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, commanding the Chinese and US Forces in north Burma in May 1944, Bate joined Stilwell’s tactical headquarters to ensure that the British and Indian troops continued to receive their air drops. While with Stilwell, he orchestrated the supply of materials for building the Ledo Road to restore the land link with China. He ended the war as an acting lieutenant-colonel, having been three times mentioned in dispatches during the Burma campaign.

On return to England in 1946, the opportunity of a regular commission with the RASC, albeit with reduction to the rank of major, held greater appeal than return to civilian costaccounting. He never looked back, carving out a successful career in the British Army, alternating between supply and transport commands and appointments on the General Staff. Having attended the Staff College, Camberley, and returned as a member of the Directing Staff, he was the first officer of the RASC to become a Colonel General Staff at the college. This followed a key logistic plans assignment in the War Office after the Suez operation and command of the 2nd Division’s transport column in the Army of the Rhine. He was appointed OBE in 1963.

Leaving Camberley for the third time in 1967, he was promoted to become Brigadier Q (Maintenance) in the MoD with responsibility for supervising the Army’s resupply worldwide before attending the 1968 course at the Imperial Defence College, now the Royal College of Defence Studies.

By then it was his ardent wish to head his corps as director of supplies and transport, but after a return to the MoD as Director of Administrative Planning, still as a brigadier in 1971, he was promoted to major-general in the parallel assignment of director of movements (Army). In the still early years of the Northern Ireland troubles with frequent emergency moves of units, including some from Germany, this was a demanding job, not least in ensuring the co-operation of the RAF, whose routine transport was subject to constant disruption.

He left the Army in September 1973 to take up the appointment of Secretary to the Council of the Territorial Army and Volunteer Associations, a post he held until 1986. He was appointed CB in 1974 and was Colonel Commandant the Royal Corps of Transport from 1974 until 1986.

He is survived by his wife Veronica (“Ronnie”) née Quinn, with two sons and two daughters.

Major-General William Bate, CB, OBE, DL was born on June 6, 1920. He died on January 13, 2008, aged 87
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Antipodean Andy · Mar 7, 2008

I really should do some reading on the Chindits. They are mentioned regularly and they all seem to have been dedicated and determined men like Bate. RIP.

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Major-General William Bate RIP

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