44RM Commando belvd. 'D' Troop, Trincomalee, Ceylon c. Oct. 1944
Date: 31/05/2020
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Owner: Pete Rogers (Admin)
Brigadier Joseph Charles Haydon, CB, DSO*, OBE.
During the summer of 1940 the Independent Companies were grouped into Special Service Battalions and a few months later these battalions became Commandos and were grouped into a Special Service Brigade under the command of Brigadier J. C. Haydon. He was succeeded in March 1942 by Brigadier R. E. Laycock. In October 1943 Laycock became Chief of Combined Operations in succession to Lord Louis Mountbatten. Service timeline
Served with the Irish Guards on the Western Front, 1917 - 1918, and in the interwar period; as Military Assistant to the Secretary of State for War, 1938 - 1939; as Commanding Officer, 2nd Battalion Irish Guards, 1939 - 1940, during which time he was involved with the operations at the Hook of Holland and Boulogne in May 1940; as commander of the Special Service Brigade (Commandos), 1940 - 1942, including the Commando raids on the Norwegian Lofoten and Vaagso Islands in 1941; as Vice Chief Combined Operations, 1942 - 1943; as commander of 1st Guards Brigade in Italy, 1944; as Army Director of Plans with the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington DC, 1944 - 1945; with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Australia, 1946 - 1947; and as Chief of the Intelligence Division, Control Commission for Germany, 1948 - 1950
