Brigadier Sir Mathew John Anthony Wilson, 6th Baronet, OBE, MC (2 October 1935 – 5 December 2019) was a British Army officer who commanded the 5th Infantry Brigade during the Falklands War.
Educated at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Wilson was commissioned into the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI) on his 21st birthday on 2 October 1956,[1] and thus represented the fourth consecutive generation of his family to serve with the regiment.
Promotion to lieutenant colonel followed in 1973 and after a further engagement in Northern Ireland and a posting to Hong Kong, in 1979 he was advanced to Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
On 27 March 2022 Channel 4 broadcast the TV documentary "Falklands War: The Untold Story" with the strap-line "On the 40th anniversary of the conflict, senior commanders and ground troops reveal how a series of mistakes nearly cost Britain its hard-won victory over Argentina in the South Atlantic".
It was stated that he had almost been sacked for poor and indecisive performance on a training exercise in the UK prior to deployment, and that Dwin Bramall, then Chief of the General Staff, later described the decision to retain him in command as one of the worst he had made in over forty years as a soldier.
Julian Thompson recounted how when Wilson proposed that his brigade should walk to Fitzroy, Major John Crosland (2 Para) had replied "Brigadier, are you pissed?".