Guise, Charles Alexander Leonard

Date of birth:: July 31st, 1907 (Stroud/Gloucestershire, United Kingdom)
Date of death:: June 20th, 1971
Service number:: 205777
Nationality:: British

Biography

Guise was a British civil servant and military officer. Educated at Winchester College in the 1920s, he began his career in the Nigerian Government Service before joining the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1941. He later served with Force 136 in Thailand, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel by 1945. He married Phyllis Mary Vaughan Croom-Johnson on 1 April 1942.

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Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)

Period:: Second World War (1939-1945)
Rank:: Lieutenant
Unit:: W Section, Special Operations Executive (SOE), British Government
Awarded on:: July 28th, 1942
Awarded for:: Operation Postmaster

"Prior to the seizure of the Italian and German ships lying at Santa Isabel on the night of 14/15 January 1942, Lieutenant Guise was employed as a Foreign Office Courier. He travelled to and from the island of Fernando Po in native craft in all weathers, sometimes in considerable personal danger. In the course of his visits to the island he made a series of extremely valuable personal reconnaissance whose complete accuracy was confirmed subsequently.

He took part in the cutting-out. With personal knowledge of the anchorage, he was pilot of the leading tug when the cutting-out vessels entered the harbour. He then ensured the successful approach of the tug Nuneaton manned by Lieutenant Hayes and his boarding party.

Throughout the period of preparation and in the operation itself, Lieutenant Guise did invaluable work. The operation could hardly have been carried out successfully without his most skillful and accurate preliminary reconnaissances."