Sir Anthony Farrar-HockleyThe soldier and military historian Gen Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, who has died aged 81, was first commander of British land forces in Northern Ireland and later an outspoken critic of the IRA, which tried to kill him several years after his retirement.
He joined the British army as an under-age private during the second World War and rose through the ranks to commander-in-chief, Allied Forces, Northern Europe, as a full general.
The son of a journalist, Farrar-Hockley was born in Coventry and left Exeter school early to volunteer for the Gloucestershire regiment in 1940; he was found out, and had to rejoin properly in 1941. A sergeant at 17, he was not yet 18 when commissioned in November 1942, and was still only 20 when given command of a rifle company in the 6th battalion of the Parachute Regiment, part of the newly formed 1st Airborne Division. He fought with it in Greece, Italy and southern France, earning a mention in dispatches in 1943 and the military cross in 1944.
Returning to the Gloucesters as a regular officer in 1946 after serving in Palestine, Capt Farrar-Hockley was adjutant of the regiment's 1st battalion when it was sent to Korea late in 1950 as part of the 29th Brigade.
He was taken prisoner by the Chinese but escaped six times. He was recaptured on each occasion but earned a mention in dispatches for his defiance.
On his return to Britain in 1953, Farrar- Hockley went to the staff college at Camberley, then rejoined airborne forces to combat the Eoka rebels in Cyprus, and in time for the 1956 Suez landings. After the British show of support for King Hussein of Jordan in 1958 - and a period as a chief instructor at Sandhurst - he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and given command of the 3rd battalion of the Parachute regiment in 1962.
In 1964 he won his second distinguished service order (his first was won in Korea) during operations against the Radfan tribesmen in Aden. The following year he served as a staff officer in Borneo, in support of the two-year-old Malaysian federation, returning to command the 16th Parachute Brigade in 1966. He went to Northern Ireland as a major-
general, when unrest was mounting after the British army's arrival in August 1969.
The first soldier was killed there in February 1971. He left that July, having publicly identified the IRA's role in organising republican violence. In August, tension rose to new heights when internment was introduced. Relations between the British army and the Catholic community deteriorated, the IRA was revitalised and the departing commander became a potential target.
Later he recalled the decision to introduce internment: "We thought very very carefully before proposing that. I was one of those who spoke very strongly against it in the early stages, but we came to a time, in April of 1971, where an intensive outbreak of IRA bombing was about to begin."
He told journalist David McKittrick that imposing a curfew had been considered. "You need a very large number of troops and police and you accept the fact that you will probably end up by harming some people - the elderly who need visits from doctors and all that sort of stuff. So we did not recommend it."
After Northern Ireland, Farrar-Hockley moved on to West Germany, then served at the three years at the Ministry of Defence, before becoming general officer commanding south-east district as a lieutenant-general.
His many works of military history included The Somme (1964) and the official two-volume account of the British part in the Korean war (1990 and 1995).
In retirement, he became a pundit, writing military articles in the press. He aroused controversy in 1983 by getting involved with a campaign for a new home guard against Soviet sabotage in the event of war. In 1990 he revealed that Britain had been involved in a secret, armed anti-communist resistance network set up in many western European countries.
Farrar-Hockley's name was found on an IRA hit list in the 1980s. IAugust 1990, his five-year-old grandson lifted a hose reel in the back garden of his grandfather's Oxfordshire home and the gardener noticed something attached to it, shouted and grabbed the boy. The bomb - 3lb of plastic explosive - had failed to go off.
Farrar-Hockley was married twice, to Margaret Wells, who died in 1981, and to Linda Wood, from 1983. She survives him, as do two of the three sons from his first marriage.
Anthony Heritage Farrar-Hockley; born April 8th, 1924; died March 11th, 2006