Jocelyn Lee Hardy

Who was Jocelyn Lee Hardy?

Major Jocelyn Lee Hardy DSO, MC with Bar, was a British Army officer famed for his courage on the battlefield and repeated escapes from German prisoner of war camps during the First World War. Between 1920 and 1922 he served as an intelligence officer in Dublin during the counter-insurgency campaign against the IRA and afterwards retired from the army to become a successful writer. His nickname, "Hoppy", stemmed from the loss of a leg in combat during the final months of World War One. Fitted with an artificial prosthesis, he trained himself to disguise the fact, by walking at a very quick pace, almost completely disguising the notion that he had a wooden leg, but earning him the sobriquet "Hoppy".