Handover of the Chairmanship of KET
19 March 2009

Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman, Secretary of the Kohima Educational Trust since 2006, has been elected Chairman. He succeeds Major General D M Naylor CB MBE DL who chaired the Trust since its foundation in 2003.

A New Zealander by birth, educated in Australia, Lyman graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1982, and served as an officer in the British Army until 2000. He now has a dual career as director of a security company and military historian.

In the latter capacity he is well known as the author of Slim Master of War and The Generals, an analysis of military leadership in South-East Asia from 1941-1945. His latest book is on the siege of Tobruk. He is now working on The Invasion of India, a history of the Japanese attempt to break through into Assam in 1944.

Lyman has visited Kohima twice recently – once in October 2008 with his two sons and schoolmaster Ben Brownless, and most recently in April 2009 as a guide to Major General David McDowall, MBE, GOC of the 2nd Division, and his senior staff. He is succeeded as Secretary of the Trust by fellow-trustee Nicholas Pinfield.