Robert Grainger Ker Thompson

Robert G. K. Thompson
Born	12 April 1916
Died	16 May 1992 (aged 76)
Battles/wars	Burma Campaign during World War II Malayan Emergency
Awards	Order of the British Empire (KBE) Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) Distinguished Service Order (DSO) Military Cross (MC)

Sir Robert Grainger Ker Thompson KBE CMG DSO MC (1916–1992) was a British military officer and counter-insurgency expert and "He was widely regarded on both sides of the Atlantic as the world's leading expert on countering the Mao Tse-tung technique of rural guerrilla insurgency".

Thompson was the son of Canon W. G. Thompson. He went to Marlborough College and took an MA at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge he joined the University Air Squadron and learnt to fly. He was commissioned into the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1936. In 1938 he joined the Malayan Civil Service as a cadet.

At the start of World War II Thomson joined the RAF, and was serving in Macao when the Japanese attacked. He escaped the Japanese and with a suitcase full of money and a knowledge of Cantonese, he gambled his way across China to Burma.

He was a liaison officer with the Chindit in the Burma Campaign, being awarded the DSO and the M.C. (the latter an unusual army decoration for an RAF officer). Later in the campaign he flew Hurricanes and was promoted to the rank of Squadron Leader in 1945.

At the war's end he returned to the Malayan civil service, becoming assistant commissioner of labour in the state of Perak in 1946. After attending the Joint Services Staff College at Latimer and holding the local rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, he was member of the staff of the British director of operations during the Malayan Emergency. He would later say that much of what he had learned about counter insurgency operations was learned while serving under Lieutenant-General Sir Harold Briggs and his replacement General Sir Gerald Templer.

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