Charles Branch (British Army officer)
Sir Charles Hector Diarmuid St John Branch KCB DSO & Two Bars MC (1886–1917) was a British Army officer.
Life and military career
The son of Ivo Branch of the Life Guards, he was born at Darjeeling, British Raj. Educated at Eton and University College, Oxford, Branch was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards in 1907.
Branch was a member of the detachment of Grenadier Guards that bore the coffin at the funeral of King Edward VII in May 1910.
Branch served in the First World War in the Middle Eastern theatre, having spent time travelling in the Balkans outside of military service. He died in battle on 11 June 1917 during an attack on a bridge at Ras Baalbek, Lebanon, fighting alongside T. E. Lawrence.
He received the Distinguished Service Order in 1916.