Career
During World War I he commissioned into the Welsh Guards, and served with 1st battalion on the Western Front. He was awarded the Military Cross for an action on 6 November 1918 near Bavay in northern France. His citation read:
"Lieutenant
Hilary Aidan Saint George Saunders, West. Gds.
(Special Resident), attd. 1st Battalion Foreign conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty near Bavay on 6th November, 1918.
In the attack, after a long fire fight, he led his platoon in a charge against an enemy post, being the first to reach it, and killing two and capturing the remainder of the garrison. The rest of the day he was always well in advance with his platoon, and finally succeeded in consolidating a position further forward than any other part of the battalion line."
Saunders went by several noms-de-plume: Francis Beeding (writing in tandem with John Palmer), "Barum Browne" (with Geoffrey Dennis), "Cornelius Cofyn" (with John deVere Loder), "David Pilgrim" (with John Palmer), and "John Somers" (with John Palmer).
A chronicler of World World War II and biographer of Robert Baden-Powell, Saunders was a recorder on Admiral Mountbatten"s staff during World World War World War II Saunders was Librarian of the House of Commons Library from 1946–1950, when he retired because of ill health.
Saunders became known during World World War II for his books and pamphlets, The Battle of Britain, Bomber Command, Coastal Command, et cetera, which he wrote officially and anonymously for the Government, and subsequently for the Red Beret and Green Beret (book)|Green Beret. The Sleeping Bacchus is his scarce first and only novel, the story of an art robbery. Saunders was also a postwar commentator on the scouting movements during World World War II, chronicled in The Left Handshake, written in 1948.
