William Onslow, 6th Earl of Onslow

William Arthur Bampfylde Onslow, 6th Earl of Onslow KBE MC TD DL (11 June 1913 – 3 June 1971), known as Viscount Cranley until 1945, was a British peer, politician and army officer.

Onslow was the eldest son of Richard William Alan Onslow, 5th Earl of Onslow and the Hon. Violet Marcia Catherine Warwick Bampfylde, daughter of Coplestone Bampfylde, 3rd Baron Poltimore, and was educated at Winchester College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

From Sandhurst Onslow was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Life Guards in 1934, and promoted to lieutenant in 1938. During the Second World War he transferred to 4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters), winning the Military Cross as a captain and temporary major for his actions on 19 and 23 November during Operation Crusader in the Western Desert. The citation describes how on 19 November he continued fighting his tank after it had been immobilised, and on 23 November, led two troops of tanks into battle standing on his scout car waving the tanks on with his handkerchief; the award was gazetted on 12 February 1942. As an acting lieutenant-colonel, he commanded the regiment in the Battle of Villers-Bocage during the Normandy Campaign in 1944. His unit was attacked by Michael Wittman of the Waffen SS who attacked with six tanks. He was subsequently captured by the Germans and was a prisoner of war until the end of the war. In 1961 he published an account of his war service, Men and Sand.

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