He was awarded a Bar to his DSO and was twice mentioned in dispatches during the Malayan Emergency. In 1954 he returned to the UK as a senior (Colonel) staff officer in Headquarters Eastern Command where he was involved in planning and mounting the Suez operation in 1956. He also expressed the view that if he had been commanding at Port Said he would have used a Nelsonian eye to signals from London telling him to stop. However, as an up-and-coming senior officer he was selected as an observer to nuclear tests in Maralinga, Australia and subsequently lectures on nuclear battlefield.