Early Life and Career
Profumo was born in Kensington, London, the son of Albert Profumo, 4th Baron Profumo, a diplomat and barrister of Italian origin, who died in 1940. He was educated at Harrow School and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he read law and was a member of the Bullingdon Club.
On 1 July 1939, he was commissioned into the Royal Armoured Corps as a Second Lieutenant, service number 92407. He had previously been a member of the Officer Training Corps and a Cadet Sergeant while at Harrow. He served in North Africa with the Northamptonshire Yeomanry as a Captain (Acting Major), where he was mentioned in despatches. He landed in Normandy on D-Day and was engaged in the subsequent fierce fighting to secure that region of France. His final rank in the British Army was Brigadier.
Major (temporary Lieutenant-Colonel) Profumo was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) (military) "in recognition of gallant and distinguished service in Italy", on 21 December 1944. Specifically it was for his service on Field Marshal Harold Alexander's staff commanding the 15th Army Group. In November 1947, Acting Colonel Profumo was awarded the Bronze Star Medal by the United States of America "in recognition of distinguished services in the cause of the Allies".
Read more about this topic: John Profumo
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“In early times every sort of advantage tends to become a military advantage; such is the best way, then, to keep it alive. But the Jewish advantage never did so; beginning in religion, contrary to a thousand analogies, it remained religious. For that we care for them; from that have issued endless consequences.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)