General Sir Montagu George North Stopford, GCB, KBE, DSO, MC, DL (16 November 1892 – 10 March 1971) was a senior British Army officer who fought during both the First and Second World Wars.

His fellow students there included Gordon Macready, Dudley Johnson, Douglas Pratt, John Smyth, Roderic Petre, Arthur Percival, Frederick Pile, Henry Verschoyle-Campbell, Robert Stone, John Halsted, Balfour Hutchison, Colville Wemyss, Rowley Hill, Kenneth Loch, Michael Gambier-Parry, Alastair MacDougall, Arthur Wakely, Edmond Schreiber, Robert Pargiter and Sydney Muspratt, along with Horace Robertson of the Australian Army, and Harry Crerar and Georges Vanier of the Canadian Army.

However, just over a month later he was selected to command the 17th Infantry Brigade, then being formed in Aldershot, Hampshire for service overseas, and was promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier.

[16] Comprising three Regular Army battalions formerly scattered around the United Kingdom, the brigade was serving under Aldershot Command until being sent to France, arriving there on 19 October, as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

[17] The next few months were spent in relative quiet, the brigade either training or helping in the construction of defensive positions in expectation of a repeat of the trench warfare that had characterised so much of the First World War.

Although French support was promised it never materialised and the brigade, after heavy fighting, was ordered to retreat, withdrawing from their positions on the night of 23 May and the early hours of 24 May.

[17] The 5th Division was then moved to the Ypres−Comines Canal, where another gap had been created on the BEF's left flank, due to the wholesale surrender of the Belgian Army.

Most of the rest of 1940 was spent in Scottish Command and was devoted to training to repel a German invasion of Britain, then, in the aftermath of Dunkirk, thought to be imminent, although in Scotland it was considered less likely, yet still a distinct possibility.

[2] Thanks to his predecessor, Major General Liardet, a TA officer who had been GOC for well over three years, the division, which had not seen action in France, was relatively well trained and reasonably well-equipped and, with the arrival of Montgomery as the new corps commander, large-scale exercises became common, getting progressively more difficult each week.

The outbreak of war, and the necessity to provide large numbers of competent and qualified staff officers in the quickest time possible, had resulted in the course being considerably reduced from nearly two years to five months, and the pre-war competitive entrance exam was abolished.

Stopford's arrival coincided with a new role conceived for his corps, which then consisted of only the British 2nd Infantry Division (Major General John Grover).

[18] At the Cairo Conference, which was held shortly after Stopford's arrival in India, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt promised Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China that the Allies would launch an amphibious operation across the Bay of Bengal.

[18] Mountbatten was not beaten and, upon returning to India, ordered Stopford to continue to train XXXIII Corps in amphibious operations, which it did so for the next months.

In March 1944, the Japanese 15th Army (Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi), launched an offensive at the centre of the Allied front at Imphal.

[26] Slim had failed to estimate the arrival of the Japanese 31st Division (Lieutenant General Kōtoku Satō), which headed for Kohima, 80 mi (130 km) north of Imphal.

[26] The British first received reports that the Japanese were aiming for Kohima from the local Naga people, and from V Force patrols, in the third week of March.

[26] Realising that Scoones would be unable to control the Kohima battle, Slim asked his superior, General Sir George Giffard, commander of the 11th Army Group, for Stopford and his HQ XXXIII Corps to be flown out from India.

Fighting in very grim conditions reminiscent of the First World War, the force managed to hold on during a siege that lasted over two weeks, the British and Indian troops being boxed in on Garrison Hill.

[26] The 2nd Division (Major General Grover) broke the road block between Jotsoma and Dimapur, thus enabling the 161st Indian Infantry Brigade to relieve the defenders of Kohima on 18 April.

These consisted of the 23rd Infantry Brigade, which had been intended to join the Chindits, and the 21st Indian Division (Major General Cameron Nicholson) a temporary creation.

Stopford knew Nicholson as a fellow instructor at the Staff College before the war, to take command of other units who had been brought up from India.

During the Kohima fighting Stopford had begun to lose confidence in Grover, believing him to be too slow and cautious, as well as apparently having handled Indian units under his command rather unsatisfactorily, and, after consulting with Slim, had him sacked.

At the same time the 11th (East Africa) Infantry Division (Major General Charles Fowkes) under XXXIII Corps cleared the Kabaw Valley, later establishing a bridgehead across the Chindwin River.

The day afterwards the 19th Indian INfantry Division (Major General Thomas Rees) crossed the river further north at Sittaung, heading eastwards.

[6][16][30] Given Lieutenant General Messervy's IV Corps, with three divisions under command, the Twelfth Army inflicted severe losses upon the Japanese troops, a significant number of whom were suffering from starvation or otherwise ill. As it turned out, this was to be the last major land action fought by the Western Allies during the Second World War as, in mid-August, the Japanese surrendered in Tokyo.

Stopford gave orders for all offensive operations to cease, and soon began negotiations with the Japanese, which culminated in their surrender at Rangoon in mid-September.

The following month, at another ceremony, General Heitarō Kimura, commander of the Japanese Burma Area Army, handed over to Stopford his sword.