Eric Hayes

Major-General Eric Charles Hayes CB (19 June 1896 – 25 August 1951) was a senior British Army officer who commanded the 3rd Infantry Division.

Educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Hayes was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Norfolk Regiment in 1915 during the First World War and saw action in Mesopotamia and Persia. He also served in the Second World War as Commanding Officer of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment in France from 1939, as Commandant of the Infantry Company Commanders' School from early in 1940 and as Commander of 169th (London) Infantry Brigade from later in 1940 before becoming General Officer Commanding 3rd Infantry Division in November 1941. He continued his war service as Commander of the Nigeria Area in West Africa from January 1943 and as Commander of the East Central District in England from late 1943 before becoming the commander of British forces in China in 1944. In that capacity he witnessed Japan's surrender in China in September 1945. He retired from the British Army in 1947.