Lieutenant Michael R O Leach

Michael Robert Leach was born on 23 Feb 1919, Dodsley Gate, Eastbourne, Sussex.

He was granted an emergency commission as a Second Lieutenant in The Royal Sussex Regiment on the 2 April 1940.

As a he volunteered for Airborne Forces, whilst serving in the Middle East, and was posted to the 11th Parachute Battalion. He did Parachute Course 62, at Ramat David, 24 – 31 August 1943. Upon completion he took up the post of Second-in-Command of ‘C’ Company. [1]

By the time the 11th Parachute Battalion had returned to England, on HM.T. ‘Orion’, docking at Liverpool on the 6 January 1945, Michael Leach was listed on the Movement Instruction as a Major, and as such he moved with the first party of 12 Officers and 295 Other Ranks to their new billets in Leicestershire. However, he is later listed as still a Captain and the Second-in-Command of ‘C’ Company, which was based at Glen Parva Grange. [2]

On the 8 May 1944 the 11th Battalion moved to a Camp at Melton Mowbray, with Michael still the Second-in-Command of ‘C’ Company, however in July 1944 he was attached to the 10th Parachute Battalion. At that time the 10th Battalion Headquarters was located at Somerby.

It would seem that he also had to take a reduction in rank, as he is listed as a War Substantive Lieutenant attached to the 10th Battalion, pending posting on the Officers Returns. [3]

He took up the post of Refusal Officer and as such would be at the airfields each time a parachute exercise took place. As such he would have been at Spanhoe airfield on Monday, 18 September 1944, to see the 10th Battalion take-off for Operation ‘Market-Garden’.

He would have been at Somerby when the survivors returned on the 30 September 1944. When the decision was made in October that the 10th Battalion would not be reformed, Lieutenant Leach was one of the ten Officers from the 10th Battalion that joined the 2nd Battalion upon the amalgamation.

In June 1945 it was decided that the 2nd Parachute Battalion would provide reinforcement ‘drafts’ of Officers and men for the 6th Airborne Division, which was earmarked for service in the Far East and the war against Japan. Lieutenant Leach was officially posted to the 12th (Yorkshire) Parachute Battalion on 20 June 1945. [4]

The battalion went to India, along with the rest of the 5th Parachute Brigade in July 1945 and was still training there when the announcement was made about the dropping of the bombs in August 1945. From India he went to Malaya (September – November 1945), Java and Batavia (December 1945) and then Semarang in January 1946, where they were fighting Indonesian rebels.

He was killed on 12 March 1946, aged 27.

The son of Robert Onebye Leach MC, and Marjorie Alice Leach, and the husband of Sheila Winifred Leach, of Graffham, Petworth, Sussex, he is buried in Djakarta War Cemetery, 3.D.8.

FOOTNOTE: Robert Onebye Leach had emigrated to Canada sometime after 1911 and when War was declared joined the Canadian Army. He was serving as a Lieutenant with Saskatchewan Regiment in the 5th Infantry Division, when he married Marjorie Alice Farrant on the 2 April 1918. He was killed in action on the 28 September 1918, in the assault on the Marcoing Line as part of  the Battle of the Canal du Nord. He is buried at Haynecourt British Cemetery, I.B.8, France.

NOTES:

[1] Parachute Course Report, RAF Ramat David. August 1943.

[2] 11th Parachute Battalion. War Diary. 1944.

[3] 10th Parachute Battalion. War Diary. 1944.

[4] 2nd Parachute Battalion. War Diary. 1944