Lieutenant-Colonel J.L. Brind
5th Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment

The swinging brigadier now likes music from Burt Bacharach to the Beatles and composes most of his material on his electronic organ. Ask if spreading the message of peace was compatible with his life as a soldier, the brigadier replied: “The Army is there to keep the peace and to keep the peace one has to love everybody.”

(Evening Post, 29 Aug 1972, 5)

Born on 29 August 1909 in Mettingham, Suffolk, James Lindsay Brind was commissioned into the Somerset Light Infantry after graduating from RMC, Sandhurst in 1928. He served with the 1st Battalion in India where his father Sir John Edward Spencer Brind (1878–1954) had been  deputy chief of the general army staff at Army. He returned to the United Kingdom in 1940.

After completing staff college at Camberley in 1943 and a period as a staff officer, Brind was posted to the 4th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry in August 1944. He served as second-in-command but on several occasions was required to take over the 4th SLI and reorganize other battalions when senior officers became casualties. His D.S.O. citation commented that he “took those jobs in his stride and never failed to give of his best in many different situations.”

In March 1945, Brind was posted to the 5th Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment, succeeding Lieutenant-Colonel N.C.E. Kenrick. He remained in command until the end of the war, with the D.S.O. citation summing up his tenure:

In all his work this officer has been characterised by his quiet efficiency and cool judgment which, coupled to his fearlessness in action, has served to make him a fine leader and an excellent commanding officer who has never failed to impress the confidence of all who have come into contact with him.

His younger brother Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Holmes Walter Brind commanded 2nd Battalion, Devonshire Regiment in North West Europe. Later in life, James Brind described the scenes on entering Germany:

The German Army had surrendered and all hostilities had ceased on the morning of May 5 … The local people, mostly old men and women, were frightened and distant. Refugees from the eastern areas of Germany were poring into our zone, cluttering up the roads, terrified of what the Russians might do to them … Pockets of resistance had to be cleared and there was general confusion and chaos … VE Day was therefore no celebration for us and except for the relief that the frightening in Europe was over, there was still a lot to be done.

Brind was next assigned to the 4th Devonshire Regiment for the anticipated invasion of the Japanese home island. Due do Japan’s surrender in August 1945, Brind commanded the 4th Devons in Austria. Following instructional duties, he commanded the 1st Somerset Light Infantry in Germany and then in the Malaya Emergency. “Morale is very high and we are carrying on after the terrorists,” he said of the operations in 1953. “Health is very good, but with men operating in jungle and swamp lands for periods of three, four and five days at a stretch, a certain amount of skin disease is unavoidable.”

He retired from the army at the rank of brigadier in 1961. He went into the creative arts working as a playwright, musician, organist, composer and children’s book author. He died on 24 May 1996 in East Retford, Nottinghamshire.