Colonel Sir Michael Picton Ansell, CBE, DSO (26 March 1905 – 17 February 1994) was a soldier, showjumper, polo player, and horse show administrator.
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Early life
Ansell was born on 26 March 1905 at the Curragh, County Kildare. His father Lt Col George Ansell was killed in September 1914, during the First World War, leading the 5th Dragoon Guards in a cavalry charge against German positions, for which he was subsequently mentioned in dispatches. After attending St Michael's Westgate-in-Sea and Wellington College he went to Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
Military career
In August 1924 he was commissioned into the 5th/6th Dragoons, a regiment formed two years earlier by the amalgamation of the 5th Dragoon Guards and 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons (his father having served in both regiments). He served throughout the 1930s a cavalry officer, show jumping rider, and international polo player.
In France in March 1940, during World War II, he was given command of a yeomanry regiment, the 1st Lothians and Border Horse, becoming the British Army's youngest commanding officer at the time. He was appointed Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1944, but was shortly afterwards wounded in the hand and eyes by "friendly fire", blinding him permanently, and then became a prisoner of war (POW). All four fingers on his injured left hand were later amputated. He was repatriated from a German POW camp in 1943.