F. G. L. Chester
British soldier
Lieutenant-Colonel Francis George Leach "Gort" Chester DSO, OBE (14 June 1899 – 18 August 1946) was a British soldier who led several Z Special Unit operations in Borneo during World War II.
Life
Chester was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on 14 June 1899, the son of Arthur and Edith Florence Rose (née Murphy) Chester, both British. He was educated at Highfield School, Liphook, Hampshire, England, and then from May 1914-July 1916 at King's School, Canterbury, Kent. He graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and during the First World War he served in King Edward's Horse, a cavalry regiment of the British Army, in 1917. He gained the nickname "Gort" due to his physical resemblance to the British Army Field Marshal John Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort.
Chester was a rubber planter at the Lokawee Estate near Jesselton in the West Coast area of North Borneo for twenty years before the Japanese invasion of January 1942. He was in Australia when the Far Eastern war broke out; he rejoined the British Army and was appointed second lieutenant on the General List on 1 May 1942, this commission was eventually backdated to 21 June 1941. At some point he was attached to the Australian Army's Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD) Z Special Unit.
Chester commanded the first Z Special Unit operation in Borneo during World War II: Operation Python I. This operation took place in early October 1943, and reported on Japanese sea-traffic in the Sibutu Passage and the Balabac Strait of the Sulu Sea, just to the north of North Borneo. The unit landed on Labian Point in North Borneo, opposite the Tawi-Tawi islands. Chester also provided support for a band of Filipino guerrillas under the command of an American officer, Captain J. A. Hamner.
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