Lieutenant-Colonel Felix Wilsey
7th Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s Regiment

The commanding officer with whom I most frequently discussed matters affecting morale was my friend. Felix Wilsey. He made a point of chatting with his soldiers during the tense times before battle, admitting that it was natural to feel jittery admitting that it was natural to feel jittery and jumpy at such times, as he himself well knew. Did they feel at all like that? Well, they could take it from him that it would all be forgotten once the real action began, when no one would have time to be jumpy, and so on.

(Frank M. Richardson, Fighting Spirit: A Study of Psychological Factors in War, 118)

Born on 29 November 1904 in Camberley, Surrey, John Harold Owen Wilsey graduated from Haileybury and Imperial Service College and later attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He took a commission with the Dorset Regiment in 1924 and transferred to the Worcestershire Regiment in 1936. Following general staff duties at the start of the war, he took command of the 9th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment in January 1943.

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