Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
The Kohima Educational Trust is delighted to announce our next webinar with Dr Robert Lyman MBE who will introduce our guest speakers: SOE Burma historian and author Dr Richard Duckett who has written the recently published book on Lt Col Edgar Peacock Jungle Warrior: Britain’s Greatest SOE commander and Duncan Gilmour, grandson of Edgar Peacock.
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was created by Winston Churchill in 1940 to "set Europe ablaze," but its most significant success occurred in the jungles of Burma, where its guerrilla operations were vital to the reconquest of the country. SOE’s greatest commander was the extraordinary Lieutenant Colonel Edgar Peacock.
Born in India in 1893, Edgar Peacock missed the First World War due to his employment in Burma’s Jungles. The talk will focus on the work of SOE’s India Mission in the contested No Man’s Land of the Kabaw Valley and beyond, an area that Edgar Peacock knew well, having been a Forestry Manager in the interwar period.
In 1940, aged 46, he lied about his age and enlisted as a Private, ending the war as a highly decorated special forces Lieutenant Colonel, who had conceived, planned and led the most successful guerrilla operation of the Second World War. Approximately 130 British officers and NCOs parachuted in, raised about 12,000 indigenous guerrillas and prevented the Japanese from halting General Slim's advance on Rangoon. Over eight months of intense, continuous, combat in enemy territory, Operation Character accounted for 11,874 Japanese casualties for the loss of 22 British troops. For a period they outperformed the entire British 14th Army!
Monsoon rains, scarce supplies, dense mountainous jungle, tigers, snakes, leeches and a determined enemy, all combined to make this an operation like no other. Dr Richard Duckett was given exclusive access to private family files and produced an extraordinary biography of an exceptional man, exploring Edgar’s truly fascinating life.
The Kohima Educational Trust is delighted to announce our next webinar with Dr Robert Lyman MBE who will introduce our guest speakers: SOE Burma historian and author Dr Richard Duckett who has written the recently published book on Lt Col Edgar Peacock Jungle Warrior: Britain’s Greatest SOE commander and Duncan Gilmour, grandson of Edgar Peacock.
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was created by Winston Churchill in 1940 to "set Europe ablaze," but its most significant success occurred in the jungles of Burma, where its guerrilla operations were vital to the reconquest of the country. SOE’s greatest commander was the extraordinary Lieutenant Colonel Edgar Peacock.
Born in India in 1893, Edgar Peacock missed the First World War due to his employment in Burma’s Jungles. The talk will focus on the work of SOE’s India Mission in the contested No Man’s Land of the Kabaw Valley and beyond, an area that Edgar Peacock knew well, having been a Forestry Manager in the interwar period.
In 1940, aged 46, he lied about his age and enlisted as a Private, ending the war as a highly decorated special forces Lieutenant Colonel, who had conceived, planned and led the most successful guerrilla operation of the Second World War. Approximately 130 British officers and NCOs parachuted in, raised about 12,000 indigenous guerrillas and prevented the Japanese from halting General Slim's advance on Rangoon. Over eight months of intense, continuous, combat in enemy territory, Operation Character accounted for 11,874 Japanese casualties for the loss of 22 British troops. For a period they outperformed the entire British 14th Army!
Monsoon rains, scarce supplies, dense mountainous jungle, tigers, snakes, leeches and a determined enemy, all combined to make this an operation like no other. Dr Richard Duckett was given exclusive access to private family files and produced an extraordinary biography of an exceptional man, exploring Edgar’s truly fascinating life.
