[2] West was the son of Captain Harry Charles John Alston-Roberts-West, RN, and Olive Molyneux-Montgomerie.
West was appointed General officer commanding (GOC) of the 1st Commonwealth Division in Korea from 1952 to 1953 and has been described as "the architect of British strategy in the Korean War".
He became GOC-in-C for Northern Command in 1960 and Head of the British Defence Staff in Washington, D.C., and UK Representative on the NATO Standing Group in 1962.
[4] West was often routinely provocative and, as a relatively junior officer, he regularly challenged US President Dwight D. Eisenhower's planning and was "invariably" found to be right.
[2] Despite his successes and influence, West was thought to be too unpredictable for the highest levels of command and he retired in September 1965.