[1][2][3] On 22 May 1941 his father, who had been educated at Monkton Combe School near Bath, Somerset,[4] was killed when his ship, HMS Fiji, was sunk by German bombers in an attack south-west of Crete.
During his first SAS tour, he served in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency, as well as Oman where he was mentioned in despatches and was awarded the Military Cross in 1959 for leading a troop in the assault on Jebel Akdar.
[11] De la Billière then served from 1977 in a number of administrative posts assuming command of the British Army Training Team in Sudan before returning to the regiment as Director SAS in 1979.
[12] Despite being due for retirement de la Billière was appointed on 6 October 1990 as Commander-in-Chief of British Forces in Operation Granby (the Gulf War), in effect the second-in-command of the multinational military coalition headed by US General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. His experience of fighting in the area, knowledge of the people and possession of some fluency in Arabic overrode concerns about his age.
[5] In 1991, he was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE)[17] and in August that year, de la Billière received Canada's Meritorious Service Cross.
[18] By the end of his career de la Billière had risen to the rank of general, and became a special adviser to the Secretary of State for Defence on Middle East military matters.
In order to allow him to receive the pension benefits of full general he was given the newly created sinecurist (honorarium) post of Middle East Advisor to the Secretary of State for Defence.
[19][20] De la Billière has written or co-authored 18 books, including an autobiography, a personal account of the Gulf War and a number of works about the SAS.