Lieutenant-Colonel Geoffrey Charles Tasker Keyes, (18 May 1917 – 18 November 1941) was a British Army officer of the Second World War and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award that can be made to British and Empire forces for gallantry in the face of the enemy. At the time he was the youngest acting lieutenant-colonel in the British Army.

Background

Keyes was the oldest son of Admiral of the Fleet Roger Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes, a British naval hero of the First World War and the first Director of Combined Operations during the Second World War. He attended King's Mead School in Seaford, Sussex, then Eton and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

Keyes was a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club.

Second World War

Early actions

Geoffrey Keyes was commissioned into the Royal Scots Greys. He saw action at Narvik and was later attached to No. 11 (Scottish) Commando, which was sent to the Middle East as part of Layforce.

Following the Allied invasion of Syria on 8 June 1941, No. 11 Commando was sent to lead the crossing of the Litani River in Lebanon, fighting successfully against troops of the French Vichy régime, during which Keyes played a leading part. In this operation, Keyes earned the Military Cross.

Author Michael Asher has pointed out that Keyes's VC citation was written by an officer who was not an eye-witness (Robert Laycock), and is at odds with the accounts of the survivors of the raid, and with German accounts; according to Asher, there is scarcely any statement in the citation that is verifiably true. Indeed, as author James Owen points out, the post-mortem conducted by the Germans showed that he had in fact been killed accidentally by one of his own men.

Asher's view is that the operation grew out of Keyes' desire to achieve the heroic status of his father, Admiral Roger Keyes. "The Rommel Raid was born out of one man's ambition to achieve glory", he has written, "and as so many times in British history, it was rescued from ignominy by the valour and determination of ordinary enlisted men, none of whom played a part in its planning, nor were even told the nature of their mission before they embarked." He is remembered on the King's Mead School War memorial in Seaford, Sussex and also in the parish church in the village of Tingewick in Buckinghamshire, home of the Keyes family. His VC is on display in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the Imperial War Museum, London.

References

Reading list

  • Keyes, Elizabeth. Geoffrey Keyes, V.C., M.C., Croix de Guerre, Royal Scots Greys, lieut.-colonel, 11th Scottish Commando (London : G. Newnes, [1956])
  • Asher, Michael. Get Rommel: The secret British mission to kill Hitler's greatest general (Cassell Military Paperbacks, [2005])
  • Owen, James. Commando (Little, Brown, [2012])
  • Lieutenant-Colonel G.C.T. Keyes in The Art of War exhibition at the UK National Archives
  • Combined Operations – Operation Flipper