Roger Fleetwood Hesketh | |
---|---|
Birth name | Roger Bibby-Hesketh |
Born | 28 July 1902 |
Died | 14 November 1987 | (aged 85)
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Service/branch | British Army |
Rank | Lieutenant-Colonel (Honorary Colonel, Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry) |
Service number | 22275 |
Unit | Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry |
Battles/wars | Second World War |
Awards |
Legion of Merit, Degree of Officer, 1948 |
Legion of Merit, Degree of Officer, 1948
Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Fleetwood Hesketh, OBE, TD, DL, JP, MP (28 July 1902 – 14 November 1987), born Roger Bibby-Hesketh, was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Southport from 1952 to 1959.
He was the first of six children born to Major Charles Hesketh Fleetwood-Hesketh (1871-1947) and his wife Anne Dorothea (Brocklebank) Fleetwood-Hesketh (1877-1940). His mother died in the torpedoing and sinking of the ocean liner SS City of Benares in September 1940.
Hesketh was educated at Eton from where, in 1922, he was commissioned into the Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry as a 2nd Lieutenant. He attended university at Christ Church, Oxford, and was called to bar in 1928 at the Middle Temple.
During the Second World War, in February 1940, then at the rank of Major, he transferred to the Royal Artillery from the Yeomanry. As Lieutenant Colonel, Fleetwood-Hesketh was a member of Ops (B), the deception section of SHAEF that helped plan Operation Fortitude, a key portion of Operation Bodyguard, the deception plan covering the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944. He wrote a history of his role and the operation that was published after his death.