Lieutenant-Colonel C.D. Barlow
1/4th Battalion, King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry

Colonel Barlow is personally responsible for the initiation and development of an entirely new form of warfare which may well play an important part in future campaigns … His own immediate military advancement may well have been prejudiced by the time he has devoted to this special subject, but he has never permitted personal considerations to stand in the way of bringing his organisation to fruition.

(OBE citation, 1944)

Born on 4 February 1905 in Somersham, Cambridgeshire, Cecil Disney Barlow was commissioned into Shropshire Light Infantry after graduating from Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1925. While part of the Army of Occupation on the Rhine in Germany, he named in a divorce suit by a British colonel, who alleged that his wife had an affair with the young lieutenant. During the early 1930s, Barlow served with the King’s African Rifles in Kenya. He completed staff college at Camberley in 1939 just as the Second World War began.

Following a posting to East Africa as a military advisor with the Colonial Office, he approached the War Office with a novel idea in 1941. He proposed the creation of sonic deception vehicles to fool the enemy with recorded sounds of tanks and machine guns. He received authorization to form a special unit named Light Scout Car Training Centre at Ballantrae in Ayrshire, Scotland. For his efforts and initiative, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire as part of the King’s Birthday Honours in 1944:

His technical ability and drive have been taxed to the full to enable his invention to reach the stage it has, and the interest taken in it by the most senior officers of other Services and Nations has required of him much tact coupled with well-considered judgement of people and of tactics.

After the Normandy landings, the tactic called for scout cars mounted with sonic devices to penetrate enemy lines and play the recorded sounds, deceiving defenders as to the location of Allied assaults and the size of the attacking forces. Meanwhile, Barlow reverted in rank from colonel to take command of the 1st/4th Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry on 28 June 1944. He was killed in action during the Normandy breakout on 26 July.