Jocelyn Lee Hardy (original) (raw)

Major Jocelyn Lee "Hoppy" Hardy DSO, MC with Bar, (10 June 1894 – 30 May 1958) was a British Army officer famed in Britain 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 in Dublin as part of the British counter-insurgency against republican forces during the Irish War of Independence and is considered one of the most ruthless and effective British intelligence officers combating the IRA who subsequently accused him of brutality. He 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 a prosthesis, he trained himself to disguise the fact, by walking at a very quick pace, al