Keith Burch was a dedicated soldier, giving himself wholeheartedly to everything he undertook. His ready smile and bluff good humour, however, obscured an aspect of his personality that some could find uncomfortable. Inclined to look ahead to anticipate problems and avoid or deal with them in advance, he had no truck with the philosophy that forward planning is a waste of time as ‘everything is bound to change’. Everything often does, but the careers of his subordinates who adopted that stance did not prosper.

The son of Christopher and Gwendoline Burch, he was educated at Bedford Modern School and RMA Sandhurst, from where he was commissioned into the Essex Regiment in 1951. As the patrols platoon commander, he went to Korea with the advance party of the 1st Battalion shortly before the ceasefire that brought combat to a close in July 1953. In consequence, he was denied all but a brief spell of active service while attached to the battalion his own was due to relieve in the line.

This was enough to give him an edge over his brother junior officers and when 1st Essex moved to Hong Kong after a year building defences along the Korean ceasefire line, he exercised his authority as senior subaltern without fear or favour. He also returned to middle distance competitive running, holding the Crown Colony’s record for the 800 and 1500 metres. Following the absorption of his regiment into what became The Royal Anglian Regiment in 1964, he held a junior staff appointment in Kenya before attending the Staff College.

Camberley’s competitive atmosphere suited him and on qualification he won appointment to the Staff Duties branch – the ‘engine room’ – of the Army Department of the MoD and was appointed MBE on leaving in 1965.

Active service with the 4th (Leicestershire) Battalion of the Royal Anglians in Aden as a company commander followed. The colony had erupted into insurrection following the murder of the Speaker of the embryonic Aden Legislative Council in September 1965. Rioting and the murder of expatriate officials and businessmen became widespread, testing the patience of an enlarged British brigade striving to establish a sufficiently peaceful situation to allow government to be handed over to locally elected representatives.

His no-nonsense approach and persistent good humour stood Burch well. His soldiers had confidence in him as he was never nonplussed by events, drove his junior officers hard and ensured operations were thoroughly planned. His subsequent recall to Camberley as a member of the Directing Staff raised a few eyebrows. So far as the infantry was concerned, teaching at Camberley tended to be the preserve of the Foot Guards and the Rifle regiments; men from regiments of the Line were relatively rare.

Burch performed well, nevertheless, whether teaching or as a member of an exercise planning team and was promoted substantive lieutenant-colonel to command 3rd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment in1969 aged 38.

The following year his battalion undertook an unaccompanied tour of duty with the United Nations Force in Cyprus. This was before the Turkish intervention of 1974, so the UN Force was distributed island-wide at anticipated flash points between elements of the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities. This commitment gave Burch no difficulty but the GOC Near East Land Forces based on Cyprus took exception to the manner in which he dealt with his officers. In consequence, he was not assigned to any further command appointment.

His career might have stalled at that point but for a stroke of good fortune. On promotion to colonel in 1976 he was appointed Chief of Staff of the 2nd Division in Germany commanded by Major-General (later General Sir) Frank Kitson. As part of the 1976 Defence Review the division was to be converted from an infantry to the armoured role, with a radical restructuring to save on headquarter and communications manpower and equipment.

This presented Burch with a complicated and demanding programme of reorganisation and trials, which he accomplished well. General Kitson appreciated a man who planned thoroughly and got things done without fuss and Burch was rewarded by advance to CBE at the end of the assignment and promotion to brigadier, albeit in a staff appointment: the Director of Administrative Planning in the Army Department of the MoD.

This was followed by a bonus year at the Indian National Defence College in Delhi. On return, he went back to the MoD as Deputy Director of Army Staff Duties, a demanding post involving management of the Army’s strictly controlled manpower allocation and membership of the Cabinet sub-committee dealing with use of the armed services to maintain the country’s essential services in the event of industrial action.

It was during this period that an opportunity arose for Burch to visit communist China. A delegation of British surgeons was invited to Shanghai to observe an operation where the patient was spared pain by acupuncture only. It was deemed expedient to include a lay person in the delegation who was not an intelligence officer, sufficiently experienced to have an appreciative look around and could be relied on not to faint when the conscious patient was opened up on the operating table. Burch was selected, did not faint and submitted a useful report.

His final military post was in the rank of major-general as Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Personnel and Logistics) in the MoD from 1983 to 1985. He was appointed CB in 1985 and left the Army to become Chapter Clerk of York Minster, where he remained for ten years. He was also active in voluntary work for ex-servicemen’s charities in Yorkshire. He was North Yorkshire and then County Chairman of the Army Benevolent Fund for twelve years and County President of the Royal British Legion for seven.

In 2006 he and his wife emigrated to New Zealand, where he was also active in ex-servicemen’s organizations. He died while on a voyage to Korea where he had planned a holiday. He is survived by his wife Sara, who he married in 1957, a son and two daughters.

Major-General Keith Burch, CB, CBE, ACDS (Personnel & Logistics) was born on May 31st, 1931. He died on March 27, 2013 aged 81.

Courtesy of The Times, 17 May 2013.