Lieutenant-Colonel M.W. Roberts
2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry

In the actual operation Lieutenant-Colonel Roberts showed outstanding gallantry. After a hazardous landing, he showed great determination in setting up and maintaining Divisional Headquarters in the face of the enemy. His services on that day and in the long advance which followed were carried out without thought for his personal safety and were of the very greatest value to me and the division.

(D.S.O. citation, 24 Jan 1946)

Born in Devonport on 15 December 1907, Michael Wace Roberts was educated at Marlborough College and was commissioned in the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in 1927. After overseas postings in India and Burma during the 1930s, he attended staff college and during the Second World War served with the Home Guard. In December 1943, he was appointed commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, which two years earlier had converted to glider infantry.

On 5 June 1944, as part of 6th Airlanding Brigade, 6th Airborne Division, the 2nd Oxfords deployed to Normandy prior to D-Day. Roberts was wounded in the days after landing but returned from England before the end of the month. In August, he left temporarily to organize the Divison Battle Drill School at Ouistreham, but resumed command again as the division returned to the United Kingdom.

At the end of October, Roberts went to 6th Division headquarters to be GSO I. He was succeeded by Major M. Darrell Brown. For both his battlefield command and staff duties, Roberts earned the Distinguished Service Order:

In both appointments he performed very gallant and distinguished services. As a battalion commander he showed a fine example during the long weeks of hard and costly fighting which followed the landing in Normandy. His battalion was always in good heart, and in spite of heavy casualties rose splendidly to the occasion when the moment came to advance.

After becoming GSO 1 of this division, the various operations projected or executed naturally brought him great responsibility and arduous labour. Lieutenant-Colonel Roberts never spared himself. He was particularly successful in organising the move of the division to Belgium in December in extremely difficult circumstances. The successful completion of the planning for the crossing of the Rhine was largely due to his devoted efforts.

After the war, Roberts took command of the King’s Own Shropshire Light Infantry in the Sudan. The was followed by a promotion to brigadier with the general staff in Singapore and Malaya for which he earned another D.S.O. From 1955 to retirement from the army in 1958, he commanded the Independent Brigade in Berlin.

Roberts died 21 January 1984.