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{{short description|British Army general and military engineer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2021}}
{{Infobox military person
|name= Sir Percy Hobart
|image= Percy Hobart.jpg
|image_size=
|alt=
|caption=
|nickname= "Hobo"
|birth_date= {{birth date|1885|6|14|df=yes}}
|birth_place= [[Naini Tal]], [[British Raj|British India]]
|death_date= {{death date and age|1957|2|19|1885|6|14|df=yes}}
|death_place= [[Farnham]], [[Surrey]], England
|placeofburial=
|allegiance= United Kingdom
|branch= [[British Army]]
|serviceyears= 1902–1946
|rank= [[Major general (United Kingdom)|Major General]]
|servicenumber= 23838
|unit= [[Royal Engineers]] [[Royal Tank Regiment]]
|commands= Specialised Armour Development Establishment [[79th Armoured Division (United Kingdom)|79th Armoured Division]] [[11th Armoured Division (United Kingdom)|11th Armoured Division]] [[7th Armoured Division (United Kingdom)|Mobile Division (Egypt)]] [[2nd Royal Tank Regiment|2nd Battalion]], [[Royal Tank Regiment|Royal Tank Corps]]
|battles= [[Military history of the North-West Frontier|North-West Frontier]] [[First World War]]
* [[Battle of Neuve Chapelle]]
* [[Second Battle of Artois]]
* [[Battle of Loos]]
* [[Siege of Kut]]
* [[Battle of Megiddo (1918)|Battle of Megiddo]]
[[Waziristan campaign (1919–20)|Waziristan campaign]] [[Second World War]]
* [[Operation Overlord]]
* [[Battle of the Scheldt]]
* [[Operation Plunder]]
|awards= [[Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire]] [[Companion of the Order of the Bath]] [[Distinguished Service Order]] [[Military Cross]] [[Mentioned in Despatches]] (9) [[Legion of Merit]] (United States)<ref name="Houterman & Koppes">[http://www.unithistories.com/officers/Army_officers_H02.html#Hobart_PCS Houterman & Koppes]</ref>
|relations=
|laterwork=
}}
[[Major-general (United Kingdom)|Major General]] '''Sir Percy Cleghorn Stanley Hobart''', {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=,|KBE|CB|DSO|MC}} (14 June 1885 – 19 February 1957), also known as [[List of military figures by nickname|"Hobo"]], was a British [[military engineer]] noted for his command of the [[79th Armoured Division (United Kingdom)|79th Armoured Division]] during the [[Second World War]]. He was responsible for many of the specialised armoured vehicles ("[[Hobart's Funnies]]") that took part in the [[invasion of Normandy]] and later actions.

==Early life==
Hobart was born in [[Naini Tal]], [[British Raj|British India]], to Robert T. Hobart (of the Indian Civil Service), and Janetta (née Stanley). His mother was born in [[County Tyrone]] and lived at Roughan Park, near Newmills, between Cookstown and Dungannon. She married Robert Hobart in Tullaniskin Parish Church, Dungannon, on 7 October 1880.

In his youth, Hobart studied history, painting, literature and church architecture. He was educated at Temple Grove School and [[Clifton College]],<ref>"Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J. A. O. p. 227: Bristol; J. W. Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April, 1948</ref> and in 1904 he graduated from the [[Royal Military Academy, Woolwich]] and was commissioned into the [[Royal Engineers]]. He was first sent to India, but during the [[First World War]] he served in France and [[Mesopotamia]] (now [[Iraq]]). He took part in the [[Waziristan campaign 1919–1920]], when British and Indian Army forces put down unrest in local villages.

Attending the [[Staff College, Camberley]], in 1920, in 1923, foreseeing the predominance of tank warfare, Hobart volunteered to be transferred to the [[Royal Tank Regiment|Royal Tank Corps]]. While there, he gained the nickname "Hobo", and was greatly influenced by the writings of [[B. H. Liddell Hart]] on armoured warfare. He was appointed as an instructor at the [[Pakistan Command and Staff College|Staff College, Quetta]], in 1923<ref>{{London Gazette|date=12 October 1923|page=6881|issue= 32870}}</ref> where he served until 1927. In November 1928, Hobart married Dorothea Field, the daughter of Colonel C. Field, [[Royal Marines]]. They had one daughter.<ref>[http://www.unithistories.com/officers/Army_officers_H02.html British Army Officers 1939–1945 – H]; Retrieved 10 April 2014.</ref> His sister, Elizabeth, married [[Bernard Montgomery]].

In 1934, Hobart became [[brigadier]] of the first permanent armoured brigade in Britain and Inspector, Royal Tank Corps. He had to fight for resources for his command because the [[British Army]] was still dominated by conservative [[cavalry]] officers. German General [[Heinz Guderian]] kept abreast of Hobart's writings using, at his own expense, someone to translate all of Hobart's articles being published in Britain.<ref>''France 1940 – Blitzkrieg in the West'' by Alan Shepperd, pp. 10, 11</ref>

In 1937, Hobart was made Deputy Director of Staff Duties (Armoured Fighting Vehicles) and later Director of Military Training. He was promoted to [[major general]]. In 1938, Hobart was sent to form and train "[[7th Armoured Division (United Kingdom)|Mobile Force (Egypt)]]" although a local general resisted his efforts. While sometimes referred to as the "Mobile Farce" by critics, Mobile Force (Egypt) survived and later became the [[7th Armoured Division (United Kingdom)|7th Armoured Division]], famous as the "Desert Rats".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.army.mod.uk/4bde/history/index.htm|title=4th Mechanised Brigade: History|publisher=British Army|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080303151855/http://www.army.mod.uk/4bde/history/index.htm|archivedate=3 March 2008}}</ref>

==Second World War==
General [[Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell|Sir Archibald Wavell]] dismissed Hobart into retirement in 1940, based on hostile [[War Office]] information due to his "unconventional" ideas about [[armoured warfare]]. Hobart joined the [[Local Defence Volunteers]] (precursor to the [[Home Guard (United Kingdom)|Home Guard]]) as a [[lance corporal]] and was charged with the defence of his home town, [[Chipping Campden]]. "At once, Chipping Campden became a hedgehog of bristling defiance", and Hobart was promoted to become Deputy Area Organiser.<ref>Keegan, J (ed.): ''Churchill's Generals'', p. 247</ref> Liddell Hart criticised the decision to retire Hobart and wrote an article in the newspaper ''[[Sunday Pictorial]]''. [[Winston Churchill]] was notified and he had Hobart recalled into the army over Chief of the Imperial General Staff [[Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke|Alan Brooke]]'s objections in 1941.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Roberts |first=Andrew |url=https://archive.org/details/masterscommander0000robe_g9v1 |title=Masters and Commanders: The Military Geniuses Who Led the West to Victory in World War II |date=2009 |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-141-02926-9 |edition=1 |location=London |pages=42–43 |language=en |ref=None |via=Archive Foundation}}</ref> Hobart was assigned to train the [[11th Armoured Division (United Kingdom)|11th Armoured Division]], a task which was recognised as extremely successfully achieved.

Hobart's detractors tried again to have him removed, this time on medical grounds but Churchill rebuffed them. He was relatively old (57) for active command and he had been ill. Once again, Hobart was assigned to raise and train a fresh armoured division, this time the [[79th Armoured Division (United Kingdom)|79th Armoured Division]].

===79th Armoured Division===
The [[Dieppe Raid]] in August 1942 had demonstrated the inability of regular tanks and infantry to cope with fortified obstacles in an [[amphibious warfare|amphibious]] landing. This showed the need for specialised vehicles to cope with natural and man-made obstructions during and after the [[Invasion of Normandy|Allied invasion of Europe]].

[[File:79th armoured division badge.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Badge of the 79th Armoured Division]]

In March 1943, Hobart's 79th Armoured was about to be disbanded, due to lack of resources, but the [[Chief of the General Staff (United Kingdom)|Chief of the Imperial General Staff]] (CIGS), General [[Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke|Sir Alan Brooke]], in a "happy brainwave", invited Hobart to convert his division into a unit of specialised armour. Hobart was reputedly suspicious at first and conferred with Liddell Hart before accepting, with the assurance that it would be an operational unit with a combat role. The unit was renamed the "79th (Experimental) Armoured Division Royal Engineers". Unit insignia was a black bull's head with flaring nostrils superimposed over a yellow triangle; this was carried proudly on every vehicle. Hobart's brother-in-law, General [[Bernard Montgomery|Sir Bernard Montgomery]],<ref>Ian Sumner, ''British Commanders of World War II'', Osprey: ''Elite'' (2003) {{ISBN|1841766690}} p. 22</ref> informed the American general [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] of his need to build specialised tanks.{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

[[File:The British Army in North-west Europe 1944-45 B11556.jpg|thumb|right|Field Marshal Montgomery examines the remains of a German V2 rocket near the HQ of Major General Percy Hobart, GOC 79th Armoured Division (left), 30 October 1944.]]

Under Hobart's leadership, the 79th assembled units of modified tank designs collectively nicknamed "[[Hobart's Funnies]]". These were used in the [[Normandy landings]] and were credited with helping the Allies get ashore. The 79th's vehicles were offered to all of the forces taking part in the landings of [[Operation Overlord]], but the Americans declined all except the amphibious [[Sherman DD]] tank.<ref>Keegan, J (ed.): ''Churchill's Generals'', p. 253</ref> Liddell Hart said of him: "To have moulded the best two British armoured divisions of the war was an outstanding achievement, but Hobart made it a "[[hat trick]]" by his subsequent training of the specialised 79th Armoured Division, the decisive factor on D-Day."

The vehicles of the 79th did not deploy as units together but were attached to other units. By the end of the war the 79th had almost seven thousand vehicles. The 79th Armoured Division was disbanded on 20 August 1945.

Hobart returned to retirement in 1946 and died in 1957 in [[Farnham]], [[Surrey]].

A barracks in [[Detmold]], Germany, was named after him. [[Hobart Barracks]] has since been handed back to the German government and no longer functions as a barracks.

==Awards and decorations==
In 1943, Hobart was made a [[Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire]] (KBE). After the war, he was awarded the American [[Legion of Merit]]. During his career, Hobart also became a [[Companion of the Order of the Bath]] (CB) and, for his actions in the First World War, received the [[Distinguished Service Order]] (DSO) and [[Military Cross]] (MC). During his military career he was also [[mentioned in despatches]] nine times.<ref name="Houterman & Koppes"/>

==Footnotes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite book|last = Borthwick|first = J. T.|author2=Montgomery, Field Marshal|title = The story of 79th Armoured Division October 1942 – June 1945|publisher = 79th Armoured Division|year = 1945|location = Hamburg|oclc=66120749}}
* {{cite web |url=http://www.afrikakorps.org/percyhobart.htm |title=Hobart biographical notes |work=[http://www.afrikakorps.org/ Afrikacorps.org website] |publisher=Allies & Afrikakorps North African / Mediterranean Campaign Research Group |accessdate=24 January 2008 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080308192417/http://www.afrikakorps.org/percyhobart.htm |archivedate=8 March 2008}}
*{{cite web |first=Hans |last=Houterman |author2=Koppes, Jeroen |title=World War II unit histories & officers website |url=http://www.unithistories.com/officers/Army_officers_H02.html#Hobart_PCS |accessdate=24 January 2008}}
*{{cite book|editor-last = Keegan|editor-first = John|last=Macksey|first=Kenneth|title = Churchill's Generals|publisher = [[Orion Publishing Group|Cassell]] Military|year = 1991|location = London|pages = 243–255|isbn = 0-304-36712-5 }}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite book| last= Delaforce| year= 1998| first= Patrick| title= Churchill's Secret Weapons – The Story of Hobart's Funnies| publisher= Robert Hale| isbn= 0-7090-6237-0}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
*[http://www.remuseum.org.uk/rem_his_bio.htm Royal Engineers Museum] Royal Engineers biographies (Percy Hobart)
*[http://www.unithistories.com/officers/Army_officers_H02.html#Hobart_PCS British Army Officers 1939–1945]
*[https://generals.dk/general/Hobart/Percy_Cleghorn_Stanley/Great_Britain.html Generals of World War II]
*[https://archive.today/20070724171233/http://www.historicalwarfare.com/articles/20070815 Historical Warfare] Major General Hobart

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hobart, Percy}}
[[Category:1885 births]]
[[Category:1957 deaths]]
[[Category:Academics of the Staff College, Quetta]]
[[Category:British Army generals of World War II]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:British Home Guard officers]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of the Bath]]
[[Category:Companions of the Distinguished Service Order]]
[[Category:Foreign recipients of the Legion of Merit]]
[[Category:Graduates of the Staff College, Camberley]]
[[Category:Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich]]
[[Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:People educated at Clifton College]]
[[Category:British Army major generals]]
[[Category:Military personnel of British India]]
[[Category:Royal Engineers officers]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Military Cross]]

Percy Hobart - Revision history

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