Brigadier Victor Henry Jaques (sometimes Jacques)[1] CBE DSO MC & Bar (31 December 1896 – November 1955) was a British Army officer.

The medal citation commends his organisation and leadership of the raid, after which he led a patrol to search no man's land for three snipers while under machine gun and trench mortar fire.

[7][8] Jaques received a bar to his Military Cross on 15 February 1919 for actions in an attack on a German position north of the Ormignon River on 18 September 1918, during the Hundred Days Offensive.

[17] With the coming of World War II, Jaques left Siam in 1940 to rejoin the army and, on 26 May, received a commission as a lieutenant in his old regiment.

[20] Jaques was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 19 April 1945 for his service in Italy; by this time he held the acting rank of colonel.

[21] By early 1945 Jaques had been selected by Force 136, the Far East branch of the undercover Special Operations Executive (SOE), as their representative in Japanese-occupied Thailand (Siam had been renamed in 1939).

[26] There were delays in getting Jaques into Thailand, which meant that the American intelligence service—the Office of Strategic Services—already had a mission to Pridi in place, giving them a distinct advantage.

[14] Despite the presence of Japanese forces and the official position of Thailand as an enemy state, Allied intelligence agents were able to travel fairly freely across the country, in full uniform, because of the support of the Free Thai Movement.

[27] Jaques, particularly conspicuous by his 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) height, found he was able to travel across Bangkok openly wearing his British Army uniform.

[25][30] Jaques secured an agreement from Pridi that a post-war Thai government would renounce claims on British territories annexed to Thailand by the Japanese.

[32] Within a week of arriving in India, Jaques travelled to Ceylon to meet with Admiral Lord Mountbatten, the Supreme Allied Commander for South East Asia.

Mountbatten cautioned against any risings by the Thais at this stage, which were unlikely to succeed, owing to their lack of equipment and training, and might provoke a strong Japanese reaction.

[33] As the OSS and Force 136 offices were in opposite sides of the city, Allied personnel were escorted between them, past Japanese patrols, by Thai military police.

[34] Jaques's mission was made more difficult by the British Secret Intelligence Service, whose Inter-Services Liaison Department sent operatives into Thailand to report on Japanese movements without requesting permission from Pridi.

[35] A further incident that affected Anglo-Thai relations was an article in a British Ceylon newspaper that advocated annexation of the Kra Isthmus by Britain after the war.

Though he acknowledged the difficulties present in Anglo-Thai relations, Jaques was hopeful that Pridi thought the British might be useful in supporting Thai claims to retain territories annexed from French Indo-China in 1941 and in opposing any southward expansion of China.

[37] The action greatly embarrassed the Japanese military who had been unable to prevent the drop, and also helped to demonstrate to Pridi that the Americans were capable of providing greater practical support to the Thais than the British.

[37] In July Jaques was summoned to meet Pridi, who had received news that a British invasion of Phuket had been foiled by Japanese forces; he was concerned that he had not been forewarned.

[40] Jaques returned to Thailand in mid-August, accompanied by officers detailed to help with the rescue of British prisoners of war in the north-east of the country.

Jaques continued to meet with Pridi and advised him not to formally renounce the Thai declaration of war on the Allies for fear of antagonising the Japanese.

[44] In the immediate post-war period, Jaques served as political advisor to General Geoffrey Charles Evans, who had entered Thailand as the head of Allied forces to supervise the disarming of the Japanese.

[45][46] Jaques was replaced in this role on 7 October by Hugh R. Bird of the Foreign Office, who had been consul in Chiang Mai in the pre-war years.