Editing Claude Auchinleck (section)

===Divorce===
Auchinleck suffered a personal disappointment when his wife Jessie left him for his friend, [[Air Chief Marshal]] [[Richard Peirse|Sir Richard Peirse]]. Peirse and Auchinleck had been students together at the Imperial Defence College, but that was long before. Peirse was now Allied Air Commander-in-Chief, South-East Asia, and also based in India. The affair became known to Mountbatten in early 1944, and he passed the information to the chief of the RAF, [[Charles Portal, 1st Viscount Portal of Hungerford|Sir Charles Portal]], hoping that Peirse would be recalled. The affair was common knowledge by September 1944, and Peirse was neglecting his duties. Mountbatten sent Peirse and Lady Auchinleck back to England on 28 November 1944,<ref>Bond, p. 124</ref> where they lived together at a Brighton hotel. Peirse had his marriage dissolved, and Auchinleck obtained a divorce in 1946.<ref name=heath34>Heathcote, p. 34</ref> Auchinleck was reportedly very badly affected. According to his sister, he was never the same after the break-up.<ref name=warner264>Warner (1982), p. 264</ref> He always carried a photograph of Jessie in his wallet even after the divorce.<ref  name=warner264/>

There is scholarly dispute whether Auchinleck was homosexual. His biographer, Philip Warner, addressed the rumours but dismissed them;{{sfn|Warner|1982|p=262}} however historian Ronald Hyam has alleged that "sexually based moral-revulsion" was the reason for Montgomery's inability to get on with Auchinleck, and further, that Auchinleck was "let off with a high-level warning" over his relationships with Indian boys.<ref>Hyam, Ronald ''Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience'', Manchester University Press, {{ISBN|978-0-7190-2505-1}} 1990, pp. 14, 32</ref>