Portal:World War II/Featured article/5

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard O'Connor was a British Army general who commanded the Western Desert Force (WDF) in the early years of World War II. O'Connor was the field commander for Operation Compass, in which he and the WDF completely destroyed a much larger Italian army. This victory nearly drove the Axis from Africa entirely, and led Adolf Hitler to send the Deutsches Afrikakorps under Erwin Rommel, to try and reverse the situation. O'Connor was later captured and spent over two years in an Italian prisoner of war camp for senior officers. He made a number of escape attempts with General Sir Philip Neame and Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart, and was eventually successful. O'Connor commanded VIII Corps in Normandy in 1944 and later during Operation Market Garden. In 1945 he was general officer in command, Eastern Command in India, and then headed the North West Army in the closing days of British rule in the subcontinent. He held the highest level of knighthood in four different orders of chivalry.