17 Facts About Vyvyan Pope

Vyvyan Pope was born on 30 September 1891 in London, the son of James Pope, a civil servant, and his wife Blanche Holmwood Pope.

Vyvyan Pope was educated at Ascham St Vincent's School, an all-boys preparatory school in Eastbourne, Sussex, and then at Lancing College, an all-boys boarding private school in Lancing, Sussex.

Vyvyan Pope was at Lancing from September 1906 to December 1910 and was a member of the school's football team and its Officer Training Corps.

Vyvyan Pope was a member of Seconds House and he served as house captain in 1910.

On 8 March 1911, Pope was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 4th Battalion, Prince of Wales's, as part of the Special Reserve of the British Army.

Vyvyan Pope was now eligible to transfer from the reserves to the regular army and made the move on 4 December 1912.

Vyvyan Pope became the junior subaltern of the 1st Battalion, North Staffordshire Regiment, then serving as part of the 17th Brigade of the 6th Division.

Vyvyan Pope remained with the battalion for most of the war, seeing action in the First Battle of Ypres in late 1914, in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in 1915, in the two serious gas attacks at Wulverghem in April and June 1916, in the Battle of the Somme in mid-1916 and in the Battle of Messines in mid-1917.

Vyvyan Pope then had his wounds dressed, but refused to leave his duties.

Second Lieutenant Bernard Martin of D Company, 1st Battalion, North Staffs would later write that, some days before the 31 July 1917 attack on Jehovah and Jordan Trenches near Zandvoorde, Vyvyan Pope had ordered, to the surprise of his officers, that the attacking lines were, "not to charge at the double across No-Man's-Land as in the old tactics but to walk at a steady pace towards Jehovah".

Vyvyan Pope managed to secure a position in 1919 in the North Russia Relief Force, part of the Allied intervention on the side of the White forces in the Russian Civil War.

Vyvyan Pope promptly returned to Ireland with an armoured car company and saw action in the Irish War of Independence.

Vyvyan Pope attended the Staff College, Camberley from 1924 to 1925, and served alongside numerous future general officers, most notably Humfrey Gale, Archibald Nye, Ivor Thomas, Willoughby Norrie, Thomas Riddell-Webster, Reade Godwin-Austen, Noel Irwin, Noel Beresford-Peirse, Michael Creagh, Geoffrey Raikes, Thomas Riddell-Webster, Daril Watson and Douglas Graham.

Vyvyan Pope held a post as a General Staff Officer at Southern Command from 1928 to 1930 and at the War Office from 1930 to 1933.

Vyvyan Pope designed II Corps' badge of a salmon leaping over a stylised "brook", as a play on his commander's name.

Vyvyan Pope was then posted as Adviser on Armoured Fighting Vehicles on General Lord Gort's staff at BEF headquarters in France.

Vyvyan Pope returned to the War Office, where he was appointed Director of Armoured Fighting Vehicles in June 1940.