General Sir Douglas David Gracey, KCB, KCIE, CBE, MC & Bar (3 September 1894 – 5 June 1964) was a British Indian Army officer who fought in both the First and Second World Wars.

Gracey's initial education was at Blundell's School before moving on to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, from where he was commissioned into the Unattached List, Indian Army on 15 August 1914 as a second lieutenant.

[4] In September 1915,[5] Gracey was appointed from the unattached list of the Indian Army into the 1st King George's Own Gurkha Rifles (The Malaun Regiment) with the rank of second lieutenant.

[11] After this he attended the Staff College, Quetta, from 1928 to 1929, and his fellow students included Colin Gubbins, John Crocker, Eric Goddard, Lionel Cox, and Henry Davies, among many others, who were destined to achieve general officer rank.

[19] At the start of the Second World War in September 1939, Gracey was commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles on the North West Frontier of India.

After this Gracey and his brigade remained in Iraq as part of Iraqforce (subsequently Paiforce), protecting the Middle East from a possible Axis thrust south of the Caucasus.

[17][23] The division concentrated in Ceylon for training and in August 1943 was sent to join Fourteenth Army's Indian XV Corps in northeast India to take part in the Burma campaign.

There was then a four-month period of rest and recuperation before the division was back in the front line with XXXIII Corps which launched an attack across the Chindwin river in December and thrust south.

[27] In February 1945 Gracey had been appointed a Commander of the order of the British Empire (CBE) for "gallant and distinguished services in Burma and on the Eastern Frontier of India"[28] and in May his rank of major-general was made permanent.

[17] During the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the Allies had agreed on Britain taking control of Vietnam south of the 16th parallel (then part of French Indochina) from the Japanese occupiers.

Fearing a communist takeover of Vietnam, Gracey decided to rearm French citizens who had remained in Saigon and allowed them to seize control of public buildings from the Viet Minh.

According to some socialist and communist commentaries, this controversial decision furthered Ho Chi Minh's cause of liberating Vietnam from foreign rule and precipitated the First Indochina War.