Lieutenant-Colonel A.J.D. Turner
6th Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s Regiment
1st Battalion, Hampshire Regiment

Even excluding the question of nerves and morale 6DWR will not be fit to go back into the line until it is remobilised, reorganized, and to an extent retrained. It is no longer a battalion but a collection of individuals. There is naturally no espirit-de-corps for those who are frightened (as we all are to one degree or another) to fall back on. I have twice had to stand at the end of a track and draw my revolver on retreating men.

(Turner, Report on State of 6th Bn DWR, 30 June 1944)

Born on 19 September 1907 in Abbottabad, India, Antony James Dillon Turner was a one-time first-class cricket player and graduate of Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Commissioned with the Suffolk Regiment in 1928, he also served with the West African Frontier Force and in India. He attended staff college at Camberley in 1938 before being posted to the Aldershot Garrison as staff captain. With the outbreak of war in September 1939, Turner was appointed deputy assistant adjutant general with I Corps and participated in the evacuation at Dunkirk for which he earned the Military Cross.

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