Distinguished Service Order Companion of the Order of the Bath Military Cross Commander of the Order of St John (Malta) 1914-15 Star British War Medal Victory Medal Indian Army General Service Medal (Afghanistan NWF clasp) General Service Medal 1939-45 Star Africa Star (8th Army) Italy Star France & Germany Star Defence Medal War Medal (WW2) WW1 Croix de Guerre (France) WW2 Croix de Guerre (France) Legion of Honour (France) Legion of Merit (USA) Order of the Crown (Belgium) Order of Public Health (France) Major-General Sir Edward Phillips KBE CB DSO MC (19 December 1889 – 14 May 1973) was a British military doctor, who served throughout World War I, saw action in Afghanistan/North West Frontier, the Middle East and was then a leading medical officer in the British Army through World War II in Africa, Italy, D-Day, the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and the establishment of the British Army of the Rhine.

[4] He joined the army in 1914 (as a Lieutenant from 31 July 1914),[1] initially in reserve[5] and then on Western Front in France as a medical officer from 19 December 1914.

[1] The role of the medical officer in wartime was to be the first step in the casualty treatment and evacuation with an aid post in the trenches supported by orderlies and stretcher bearers.

[4][20] from 1936-1937, under ADMS for Meerut District and Delhi Independent Brigade Area, Eastern Command Col. S.G.S.Haughton, CIE, OBE, MD.

He joined a directly active unit on 27 September 1941 when he was appointed Colonel (with seniority backdated to 17 November 1938)[1][25] and Assistant Director Medical Services, 10th Indian Infantry Division around its formation.

[1] XIII Corps was commanded by Lt-Gen William Gott and was part of the British 8th Army in the North African desert, which had suffered serious reverses.

This period of the North African Campaign included the retreat to Tobruk, the defeat at Gazala (at the same time as Phillips was briefly a Prisoner of War, see below), the Mersa Matruh defeat, and the First Battle of El Alamein, which halted the Axis advance and led to the arrival of General Montgomery who Phillips was to follow for the rest of the war, during Operation Torch, the 2nd Battle of El Alamein, then to Italy, France and Germany.

Phillips' involvement with these events can be seen in the later (16 February 1943) medal citation for his CBE (by which time he was a temporary Brigadier)[27] as part of a group of awards "in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in the Middle East during the period May, 1942 to October, 1942".

This period included the battles around TOBRUK beginning 27 May, the subsequent withdrawal to the ALAMEIN line and the fighting in that position.

Throughout that period the successful evacuation and treatment of casualties was largely due to the arrangements made and supervised by Brig.

In this is displayed an exceptionally astute appreciation of the requirements of the varied and difficult situations arising, and his anticipation of events from the medical point of view ensured that wounded were evacuated expeditiously and with the minimum suffering.

PHILLIPS and his personal influence exercised through frequent visiting of all Corps Medical Units was a great inspiration and encouragement to his subordinates and the source of confidence to those working in close touch with him.

[28] On a more personal note, on 3 June 1942 Brigadier Phillips wrote to his mother from XIII Corps HQ, MEF, "...since my last letter I have been a Prisoner of War & escaped!

As DDMS, Eighth Army and by then a Brigadier (temporary), under Field Marshal Montgomery, he was involved in the planning and execution of Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 which at that point was the largest amphibious assault ever mounted.

Phillips was appointed Deputy Director Medical Services (DDMS) 2nd Army, and from 10 November 1944[1] that year made Acting Major General and Director Medical Services (DMS), 21st Army Group, replacing Major General Sir Percy Stanley Tomlinson on his retirement.

The invasion was planned at St Pauls School in London, of which both Phillips and his commanding officer Monty were old boys.

Based on experience in the desert and the resulting 1942 Hartgill Committee report[32] the medical services knew they had to redesign themselves.

The medical units deployed on D-Day (26 June 1944) and the immediate aftermath, and the casualty clearing chain all the way back over the Channel to the UK were unprecedentedly challenging and large.

For D-Day the plan was for evacuation of all casualties that could be moved, and the provision of life saving surgery by the medical units in the beach organisation.

Beach Groups could offer first-aid, life-saving surgery and retain casualties unfit for further short-term evacuation.

[35] By 26 July there were 12 Casualty Clearing Stations, 19 General Hospitals (all tented, at this stage, with either 200, 600, 800 or 1,200 beds each) and 3 Medical Depots.

[38] Eventually road transport routes were too long, and a railhead was established and daily hospital trains set up.

As the advance consolidated, larger convalescent depots were set up in civilian hospitals, religious buildings or schools to hold all troops who might return to service in under 30 (later under 42) days.

Among the patients were thousands of sick and wounded prisoners of war, and we had to organise them into trainloads and repatriate them to Italy, Yugoslavia, or whatever was their country of origin..." Having become concerned about how ambulance trains were moving so slowly "...I put in a report to my chief, the director of medical services Major-General Sir Edward Phillips, and he intervened at top level to get a higher priority for these ambulance trains."

In April 1945 Brigadier Hughes, DDMS 2nd Army, with 11th Armoured Division entered Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to find more than 60,000 emaciated prisoners, more than 13,000 corpses in various stages of decomposition, and a great risk of disease, which Phillips was ultimately responsible for dealing with.

Margaret had been a civilian doctor in Glasgow but had been called up to the Royal Army Medical Corps and come over to France and later Germany with the military hospitals commanded by Phillips as part of Operation Overlord and subsequent advances.

Phillips died at home of cancer in 1973 having been treated at Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot; he was survived by his wife and daughter.

This, indeed, he may sometimes have been, but in his dealings with his friends, and these included the whole of his staff with its large numbers of distinguished civilian consultants, he was extraordinarily kind and considerate, going to great lengths, often surreptitiously, to help them.

The Heraldry Society produced a Funerary hatchment and their obituary noted that " 'Edward was so modest that unless one had recourse to reference books one would never have suspected what a distinguished person he was.