Leslie Samuels

Captain Leslie Joseph Samuels, MC was an Irish officer of the British Army who served during the Second World War.
He was born on 11 December 1912, in Dublin, the son of Joshua and Millicent Honigbaum (née Collins), of Hull and Ukraine, respectively. His father, who adopted the surname 'Samuels' on the outbreak of the First World War, settled in Ireland with his family in the early 1900s. In Dublin, his father bought a shop on Henry Street which became known as 'Samuels' Bazaar'.Rivlin, Ray (2011), Jewish Ireland: A Social History, p. 85. Samuels studied at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and qualified as a physician.
After the Second World War began, he was one of nine Jews who offered their services at a Garda station. He and two others doctors were rejected; it was conjectured to be on account of an unwillingness to grant officer status to Jews.Rivlin, Ray (2011), Jewish Ireland: A Social History, p. 201. Samuels then joined the British Army, and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps on 22 May 1941.The London Gazette (35192), p. 3447. 17 June 1941, thegazette.co.uk. Retrieved 4 August 2015. Promoted to captain in 1942, Samuels was posted to the 2nd London Irish Rifles as its regimental medical officer, and served with it in North Africa and throughout the Italian Campaign. He was twice mentioned in despatches and was awarded the Military Cross in 1944, for tending to the wounded while supervising an evacuation at the Trigno River.BMJ: British Medical Journal, p. 685.
Samuels settled in London post-war, and went into general practice with his brother as 'Samuels & Samuels'. In 1945, he married Lenke Iren Szanto, in Tel Aviv.British Army Officers 1939-1945, unithistories.com. Retrieved 4 August 2015. After her death, Samuels remarried, to Sally Lever, in 1976. He retired in 1990, although he continued to do locums, and died on 14 June 1997, in London.
==Notes==
Category:1912 births
Category:1997 deaths
Category:Irish military personnel
Category:British military personnel
Category:British Army
Category:British people of Jewish descent
Category:Buried in England
Category:Captains