Brigadier Reginald Miles, CBE, DSO & Bar, MC (10 December 1892 – 20 October 1943) was a professional soldier who served in the New Zealand Military Forces during the First and Second World Wars.

He served as an artillery officer in the First World War and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his actions during the German spring offensive.

Captured during fighting near Tobruk in late 1941, he was held in a prisoner of war camp in Italy but escaped in April 1943 with five other officers, including fellow New Zealander James Hargest.

[1] A highly rated student, Miles was in the final year of his cadetship at Duntroon when the First World War broke out in the summer of 1914.

[4] In July 1918, Miles was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), having originally been recommended for the Victoria Cross, for his actions during the German spring offensive.

He fought his battery until the enemy were within 500 yards, and his ammunition exhausted, at the same time rallying infantry stragglers and manning a fire trench, then made a reconnaissance into a wood sending back valuable information.

[8] An initial attempt to join the main part of the division in the Middle East in October 1940 was foiled when the ship he was travelling on was bombed and forced to return to England.

[9] Miles served throughout the Greece campaign and played a key role in the organisation of the withdrawal of the division as it retreated ahead of the advancing Germans.

[10] The artillery was particularly vital in covering the undefended high ground on the flanks of 6th Infantry Brigade as it manned a holding position at Thermopylae.

[13] After convalescing, Miles re-joined the 2nd New Zealand Division in North Africa, where it was reforming after the losses incurred in Greece and on Crete.

[4] During this campaign, aimed at lifting the besieged port of Tobruk, the 2nd New Zealand Division was involved in heavy fighting around Sidi Rezegh, where Miles deployed artillery in support of the 6th Infantry Brigade.

[14] Having established a corridor to Tobruk, the commander of the division, Major General Bernard Freyberg, was becoming concerned that they would be unable to hold it open.

On 30 November, he entrusted Miles with getting permission from Lieutenant General Alfred Godwin-Austen, the corps commander, to withdraw into or alongside Tobruk.

[14] Miles advised Freyberg, still unaware of the fate of 6th Brigade due to poor communications, of Godwin-Austen's instructions on his return to the 2nd New Zealand Division's headquarters early on 1 December.

Miles, concerned about his artillery given the uncertainty surrounding the status of the 6th Brigade, was present on an inspection of the battle zone[16] and he moved about, rifle in hand, encouraging his men, and directing them to fire their guns over open sights.

[18] Together with Brigadier James Hargest, the commander of the New Zealand 5th Infantry Brigade and captured around the same time,[4] Miles arrived in the Italian prisoner-of-war camp Vincigliata PG 12 in 1942.

[21] Miles was one of only three men (Hargest was one of the others) known to British Military Intelligence to have escaped from an Italian prisoner-of-war camp and make their way to another country prior to the armistice with Italy.

He was buried with military honours, and escorted to his final resting place in the Figueras Municipal Cemetery by members of the British Consulate and a party of Spanish officers.

His only son was a lieutenant in the Fleet Air Arm; he also served in the Second World War and was killed travelling aboard HMS Glorious when the ship was attacked and sunk by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off Norway on 8 June 1940.