Commissioned a second lieutenant in 1915, he was an artilleryman on the Western Front in France from 1915 to 1917, served in Italy in late 1917 and early 1918, then returned to France to participate in the Allies’ victorious 1918 offensive. By Armistice Day he was a major and artillery battery commander, been thrice wounded, twice mentioned in dispatches for gallantry, and decorated with the Military Cross

In 1932, Sydney assured his ascension to high command by graduating from the Royal Army’s staff college, and when World War II erupted was promoted to brigadier general.

His greatest moment occurred in late 1942 when he commanded the British 8^th Army artillery that pulverized Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps at El Alamein, England’s greatest World War II triumph.

In his memoirs, El Alamein victor Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery calls Sydney "the best artilleryman in the British Army."

In April 1943, Sydney was named commander of the 50^th "Northumbrian" Infantry Division in Tunisia and won the 8^th Army’s hard-fought battle at Primasole Bridge in Sicily. In 1944 he commanded the British XIII Corps which defeated the Germans at Cassino, Italy and pursued them to their fortifications north of Florence.

Worn down by three years of continuous warfare, Sydney was invalided home in late 1944, recovered his health, and led British forces that liberated the English Channel islands in May 1945.

After the war, Sydney commanded the British I Corps in occupied northern Germany, was promoted to full general and named a deputy chief of the Imperial General Staff. In 1947, he was named the British Army’s Quartermaster General.

Sydney retired in 1950, then conducted financial investigations for the British government in Germany and the U.K., and in 1954, was appointed a Deputy Secretary of the government’s Home Office charged with modernizing Britain’s Atomic Age Civil Defense organization.

Sydney won a bushel of military honors and decorations: Knight of the British Empire, Order of the British Empire, Commander of the Bath, the American Legion of Merit, and France’s Legion of Honor and Croix de Guerre.

An incredibly handsome man, Sydney married Amy Caroline Erskine Clark in 1932 and fathered two sons, one of whom may be Charles Chevalier Kirkman, a modern day Royal Artilleryman. Fellow officers say Sydney was a brilliant, intellectual, inspiring commander, but a firm taskmaster. He died Nov. 5, 1982 (age 87).

Like his brother, Major General John Mather Kirkman began his military career as an artilleryman then switched to more dramatic duties.

Born in Bedford on May 5, 1898, the younger son of Judge John P. Kirkman graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1917 and was an artilleryman in France and Belgium during the last two years of World War I.

John also qualified for high command by graduating from the British Army War College in 1934. He then became an intelligence specialist, initially concentrating on the Soviet Union’s military apparatus. In 1941, he was promoted to brigadier and named chief of intelligence for the Army’s Imperial General Staff.

John provided military intelligence for Prime Minister Winston Churchill and accompanied him to conferences with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. John also headed the Royal Army, Navy and Air Force’s joint intelligence staff.

In 1944, John became a staff officer for British forces in the Mediterranean and in 1945 participated in the liberation of Greece. After the war, he was promoted to Major General and was chief of staff for British forces in Palestine and the Far East. From 1950 to ‘54 John was chief of Army intelligence in occupied Germany.

John also won several high decorations: Order of the British Empire, Commander of the Bath, and the Greek Order of George I with swords, and was thrice mentioned in dispatches. He retired in 1954 after a 37-year army career. John never married and died Oct. 14, 1964.

Noteworthy during World War I was Royal Flying Corps Capt. Robert Kirby Kirkman, an eight-victory ace of the 20^th Fighter Squadron who won the Military Cross. Unfortunately, Robert was shot down and killed on March 27, 1918 near Albert, France by German ace Karl Gallwitz.

Stephen Thomas Kirkman is a modern day British Kirkman, a 47-year-old real estate manager who resides in Croydon, a London suburb, and one of the family’s avid genealogists. He’s married to Maria-Paola Mallenzi (born Sept. 18, 1952 in Rome), and has a 16-year-old son, Roberto, born Nov. 28, 1982..

His father, Sydney Frederick Kirkman, now 88, is another of the family’s eye witnesses to history. During the Luftwaffe’s destructive 1940-41 Blitz, Sydney was one of London’s firemen who worked night and day to overcome the enormous flames that devastated the city’s East End docks, an inferno that shocked the world.

Stephen’s uncle (Sydney’s brother), Henry "Harry" Edward Kirkman, is a very lucky World War II merchant seaman who sailed to both coasts of the United States, Australia, New Zealand and North Africa for which he was awarded four medals. On one of his voyages, Harry’s ship was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat and his rescue ship also was torpedoed. He was rescued a second time. Harry also just missed getting zapped by a German V-2 rocket which destroyed his home in London.