Editing Enoch Powell (section)

== Military service ==
In October 1939, Powell enlisted as a private in the [[Royal Warwickshire Regiment]]. He had trouble enlisting, as during the "[[Phoney War]]" the [[War Office]] did not want men with no military training.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=57}} Rather than waiting to be called up, he claimed to be Australian, as Australians, many of whom had travelled to Britain to join up, were allowed to enlist straight away.{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=39}} He was promoted from private to lance-corporal and completed officer training. He told colleagues that he expected to be at least a major-general by the end of the war.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=57–58}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=40}}

On 18 May 1940, Powell was commissioned as a second lieutenant onto the [[General Service Corps|General List]].<ref>''[[The London Gazette]]'', Issue 34855 (Supplement), 24 May 1940, [https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/34855/supplement/3097 3097], [https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/34855/supplement/3101 3101]</ref> He was transferred to the [[Intelligence Corps (United Kingdom)|Intelligence Corps]] and later promoted to captain, posted as GSO3 (Intelligence) to the 1st (later 9th) Armoured Division. During this time, he taught himself Portuguese; as insufficient Russian-speaking officers were available at the [[War Office]], his knowledge of Russian and his textual analysis skills were used to translate a Russian parachute training manual; he was convinced that the Soviet Union must eventually enter the war on the Allied side.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=55, 64}}

In October 1941, Powell was posted to [[Cairo]] and then transferred back to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was promoted to major in May 1942{{Sfn|Heffer|1998|p=68}} and then to [[lieutenant colonel]] in August 1942.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=70}} In that role, he helped plan the [[Second Battle of El Alamein]], having previously helped plan the attack on [[Erwin Rommel]]'s supply lines.{{Sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=41}} The following year, he was appointed a [[Order of the British Empire#Current classes|Member of the Order of the British Empire]] (MBE) for his military service.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=35908 |date=16 February 1943 |page=861 |supp=y}}</ref> During his time in [[Algiers]], Powell began to distrust the United States' position. Powell's suspicion of the anti-British Empire nature of the US Government's foreign policy continued for the remainder of the war and into his subsequent post-war political career.{{Sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=86–87}}

Following the Axis defeat at the [[Second Battle of El Alamein]], Powell's attention increasingly moved to the Far East theatre, where the Allies were fighting the [[Imperial Japanese Army]] (IJA).{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=76}} He wished to be assigned to the [[Chindits]] units operating in [[Myanmar|Burma]]. He secured a posting to the [[British Indian Army]] in [[Delhi]] as a lieutenant-colonel in military intelligence in August 1943.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=82}} Powell was appointed Secretary to the Joint Intelligence Committee for India and [[Lord Mountbatten]]'s [[Southeast Asia]] Command,{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=50}} involved in planning an amphibious offensive against [[Sittwe|Akyab]].

Powell had continued to learn Urdu. He had an ambition of eventually becoming [[Governor-General of India|Viceroy of India]], and when Mountbatten transferred his staff to [[Kandy]], [[British Ceylon|Ceylon]], Powell chose to remain in Delhi. He was promoted to full colonel at the end of March 1944, as assistant director of military intelligence in India, giving intelligence support to the [[Myanmar|Burma]] campaign of Field Marshall [[William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim|William Slim]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=93}} Powell ended the war as a [[Brigadier (United Kingdom)|brigadier]], for a while, the youngest in the British Army.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=93}} He told a colleague that he expected to be head of all military intelligence in "the next war".{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=54}} Powell never experienced combat and felt guilty for having survived, writing that soldiers who did so, carried "a sort of shame with them to the grave".{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=44}}