Archibald Paris

Who was Archibald Paris?

Brigadier Archibald Charles Melvill Paris DSO MC was a British Army officer.

He was the son of Major-General Archibald Paris, KCB a Royal Marines officer who commanded the 63rd Division during the First World War, and of Lady Paris.

Paris passed out of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in 1909. He married Ruth Norton. He served in the First World War, and was awarded the Military Cross in 1917.

Although he is better known for having died during the events that followed the sinking of the Dutch ship Rooseboom off Sumatra in 1942, he was also one of the few British commanders that put up a good fight against the Japanese during the Battle of Malaya and the subsequent fall of Singapore.