Major General Edward Alexander Wilmot Williams, CB, CBE, MC (8 June 1910 – 2 November 1994) was a British Army officer who served in the Second World War and later commanded the 2nd Division from 1960 to 1962.
[8] Williams, along with the battalion, now commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Evelyn Barker, was sent to Palestine in 1936, following the outbreak of the Arab revolt, before again returning to England in 1937, where it was converted into a motorised infantry battalion and became part of the Mobile Division (from April 1939 the 1st Armoured Division), under Major General Alan Brooke.
By then the battalion, alongside the 1st Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own), formed the infantry component of the 1st Support Group, under Brigadier Frederick Morgan, of the 1st Armoured Division, now under Major General Roger Evans.
[1] Williams managed to escape and, after returning to the United Kingdom, was awarded the Military Cross, for "gallant and distinguished services in recent operations", on 3 September 1940.
[1] The army was then serving in French North Africa, having landed there as part of Operation Torch some five weeks earlier.
[13] His last appointments were as General Officer Commanding Singapore from November 1962 and Chairman of the Vehicle Committee at the Ministry of Defence from 1964 before retiring in 1965.