Brian Horrocks

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Sir Brian Horrocks
September 7, 1895 – January 4, 1985 (aged 89)
Lieutenant-General Horrocks, March 1945
Nickname	Jorrocks[1]
Place of birth	Ranikhet, India
Place of death	Chichester, West Sussex
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1913–49
Rank	Lieutenant-General
Commands held	11th Infantry Brigade 44th (Home Counties) Division 9th Armoured Division XIII Corps X Corps IX Corps XXX Corps British Army of the Rhine
Battles/wars	World War I Russian Civil War World War II Battle of France Battle of Alam el Halfa Second Battle of El Alamein Mareth Line Falaise gap Operation Market Garden Operation Veritable
Awards	KCB (1949)[2] KBE (1945)[3] CB (1943)[4] DSO (1942)[5] MC (1920)[6] MID (1943,[7] March 1945,[8] August 1945[9])
Other work	Black Rod, television presenter, author

Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Gwynne Horrocks KCB, KBE, DSO, MC (September 7, 1895 – January 4, 1985) was a British military officer. He is chiefly remembered as the commander of XXX Corps in Operation Market Garden and other operations during the Second World War. He also served in the First World War and the Russian Civil War, was a prisoner of war twice, and competed in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Later in life he gained further fame as a television presenter and as Black Rod in the House of Lords.

In 1940 Horrocks commanded a battalion during the Battle of France, serving for the first time under Bernard Montgomery, the most prominent British general of the war. Montgomery was later to rely on Horrocks as one of his most able commanders, appointing him to corps commands in both North Africa and Europe. Horrocks was seriously wounded in 1943 and spent over a year out of action, before returning to command a corps in Europe. This wound caused him continuing health problems and led to his early retirement after the war. It is also likely that this time spent wounded restricted his advancement in the army;^[10] his contemporary corps commanders in North Africa, Leese and Dempsey, went on to command at army level.

Since 1945, Horrocks has been regarded by some as one of the most successful British Army generals of the war and as the "beau ideal of a corps commander".^[11] Dwight D. Eisenhower called him "the outstanding British general under Montgomery".^[12]

[edit] Early life and First World War

Horrocks was the son of Colonel Sir William Horrocks, a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was educated at Uppingham School, an English public school, and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, which he entered in 1913.^[13] His score was sixth-lowest of the 167 successful applicants for cadetships, even after the addition of 200 bonus points for an OTC certificate, which not all the other applicants had.^[14] He was an unpromising student and might not have received a commission had the circumstances not changed abruptly with the outbreak of the First World War.^[15]

Commissioned as a second lieutenant into the 1st Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment on August 8, 1914,^[16] Horrocks joined the British Expeditionary Force in its retreat following the Battle of Mons. Horrocks was shot through the lower stomach and captured when his platoon was surrounded at the Battle of Armentières on October 21, 1914.^[17] He was taken to a military hospital and repeatedly interrogated by his German captors, who believed that the British Army were using dum-dum bullets. Horrocks' captors refused to change his clothes or sheets and denied him and a fellow officer the use of a bed pan or bottle. Both had lost the use of their legs and been forced to crawl across the floor to use the toilet, which resulted in Horrocks' wounds becoming infected.^[18] Conditions improved for Horrocks after his discharge from the hospital when he befriended the German soldier who escorted him to the prisoner of war camp. Horrocks attributed this rapport to the "respect for each other" that front-line troops have.^[19] Despite his capture he was promoted to lieutenant on December 18, 1914.^[20] He made a number of escape attempts whilst a prisoner and, in one instance, came within 500 yards (460 m) of the Dutch border before capture.^[21] In an attempt to prevent further escape attempts, his captors placed him in a compound with solely Russian officers. Horrocks used the time to learn their language. Years later, when working in the House of Commons, he surprised Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin by greeting them in Russian.^[22] The escape attempts earned him the Military Cross, awarded in 1920 and backdated to May 5, 1919.^[6]

Horrocks had trouble adapting to peace-time on his return and spent four years of back-pay in six weeks, indulging himself in hedonistic trips to London.^[23] However, he soon found an opportunity to return to active service when the War Office called for volunteers who knew Russian.

[edit] Inter-war period

[edit] Russia

Horrocks was posted to Russia as part of the British mission during the Russian Civil War. After landing in Vladivostok on April 19, 1919, he was taken to the British headquarters and briefed on the situation. The White Army under Admiral Kolchak, with the assistance of released Czechoslovak Legion prisoners, had driven the Red Army out of Siberia. The Czech troops were now returning home and the British military contingent was urgently trying to replace them with Russians. To carry out this task, the British had at their disposal just two infantry battalions and two small administrative missions: one charged with training personnel and arming them with British war-surplus equipment and one to assist in administering the lines of communication for the White Army.^[24]

White Russians stand over the bodies of Red Army soldiers killed at Vladivostok. The Russian civil war was exceptionally bloody and led to millions of military and civilian deaths.

A party of thirty British soldiers and NCOs and fourteen officers, including Horrocks, were tasked with guarding a train delivering twenty-seven carriages of shells to the White Army in Omsk, 3,000 miles (4,800 km) away on the Trans-Siberian Railway.^[25] They were to report afterwards to the British mission and begin training Russian troops. The journey took more than a month and, as the only contingent member fluent in Russian, Horrocks had to overcome numerous difficulties on his own.

Horrocks' next destination was Yekaterinburg, where he was appointed second in command of a NCO training school attached to the Anglo-Russian Brigade.^[26] This period was a frustrating one; he had to dismiss nearly a third of his initial group of soldiers on medical grounds and struggled to get supplies and support from the White Army authorities.^[27] Despite this, he developed a rapport with his men and an admiration for the ordinary Russian soldier.^[28]

Although British forces were ordered to return home shortly afterwards, Horrocks and another officer remained to liaise with the First Siberian Army.^[29] The White Army was in headlong retreat and Horrocks joined them as they fell back to Vladivostok, 3,000 miles (4,800 km) away. He was captured by the Red Army on January 7, 1919 in the town of Krasnoyarsk,^[30] and spent ten months as a prisoner, narrowly surviving severe typhus.^[31]

[edit] Back home

Horrocks rejoined his regiment, based in Germany with the British Army of the Rhine, and followed it to Ireland, then embroiled in the Anglo-Irish War. His duties there included searching for arms and dealing with ambushes and road-blocks, "a most unpleasant form of warfare".^[32] This was followed by a short period in Silesia, to deal with tensions between the Polish and German populations.

On his return to Britain, Horrocks pursued other interests and decided to take up the modern pentathlon. He competed successfully in army tournaments and managed to gain entry into the British Olympic team for the 1924 Paris Olympics, where he finished 20th of 38 competitors.^[33] Horrocks spent the remainder of the inter-war years in a variety of postings. These included: adjutant for the 9th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment of the Territorial Army, studying at the Staff College, Camberley, Staff Captain at the War Office, Brigade Major with the 5th Infantry Brigade, and finally instructor at the Staff College.^[34] The Territorial Army posting, considered by Horrocks to be among his happiest periods, provided experience of dealing with citizen soldiers which would prove invaluable during the war.^[35] He received a brevet majority in 1935, was promoted to substantive major in 1936 and brevet lieutenant colonel in 1937.^[36]

In 1928 Horrocks married Nancy Kitchin, daughter of an architect to the Local Government Board. Together they had one daughter, Gillian, who drowned in 1979 while swimming in the River Thames.^[37]

[edit] Second World War

Major-General Horrocks, then GOC of 9th Armoured Division, in his Covenanter command tank during an exercise, July 18, 1942

At the beginning of the Second World War, Horrocks worked as an instructor at the staff college, where he had taught since 1938.^[38] After assisting in organising a new, shorter, course for officers entering the Army,^[39] he was promoted to substantive lieutenant-colonel in December 1939.^[40] In May 1940, he was despatched to France to command the 2nd Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, a machine-gun battalion directly subordinate to the 3rd Division HQ of Major-General Bernard Montgomery. British doctrine at the time kept heavy machine guns under the direct command of a corps or division, rather than as an organic part of lower formations.^[41] He joined the battalion during the retreat to Dunkirk. After commanding the battalion for only seventeen days, he had impressed his superiors sufficiently to be given the temporary rank of brigadier and the command of 11th Brigade. The brigade's previous commander, Kenneth Anderson, had been promoted to General Officer Commanding (GOC) 3rd Division during the evacuation when Alan Brooke, commander of II Corps, was recalled to the UK and Montgomery had taken over the corps.^[11] On his return to Britain he was given command of 9th Brigade and put on defensive duties in case of a German invasion of Britain.^[11] He then had a short period as Brigadier General Staff (BGS) of Western Command, before promotion to acting major-general and command of 44th (Home Counties) Infantry Division on June 25, 1941.^[42] In addition to his acting promotion, he was promoted to substantive colonel on May 28, 1941 (with seniority backdated to July 1, 1940).^[43]

In 1942, Horrocks was given command of the newly formed 9th Armoured Division and gained the temporary rank of major-general on June 27.^[44] Horrocks was an unusual choice for commander of an armoured division as an infantry soldier with no experience of dealing with cavalry regiments.^[45] He trained the division hard and learned a great deal about armoured warfare in exercises.^[46] Despite never commanding a division in battle, he was promoted to acting lieutenant-general and sent to Egypt to command XIII Corps in the Eighth Army under its new commander, Montgomery.^[47] General Harold Alexander and Lieutenant-General Montgomery had decided to make a "clean sweep" on replacing the dismissed Claude Auchinleck as Commander-in-Chief Middle East and Eighth Army commander respectively. Officers perceived to have failed under the old regime were removed and Montgomery's favoured commanders were brought in. Among these was Horrocks, an officer whom Montgomery felt was "exactly what was wanted for the job that lay ahead".^[48]

[edit] North Africa

On arriving in North Africa, Horrocks' corps was ordered to defend the Alam el Halfa ridge from the expected attack by the Afrika Korps. To prevent casualties prior to the planned Second Battle of El Alamein, Montgomery instructed Horrocks that he repel Rommel "without getting unduly mauled in the process".^[49] Horrocks prepared a plan for a purely defensive battle, with his armour dug in around the ridge. When the Germans attacked on August 30, they failed to lure the British tanks towards their 88mm guns, a tactic that had previously been used with great success, and found themselves battered by artillery and the Desert Air Force.^[50] The battle ended with the Germans in control of Himeihat hill, at a high cost, and the Allied forces unwilling to recover it after an unsuccessful attack by the 2nd New Zealand Division on the withdrawing Germans.^[51] The success in the battle proved crucial in raising the morale of the army.^[52] Horrocks received praise from both his subordinate, Brigadier Roberts, for his "wonderful knack of inspiring confidence and enthusiasm wherever he goes",^[53] and his commanding officer, Montgomery, who said "he deserves great credit for his action on that day".^[54]

The attack at El Alamein, October 23, 1942. 7th Armoured Division, 44th Division and the 1st Free French Brigade of XIII Corps make a feint to the south.

Horrocks was offered the command of X Corps, an armoured corps, in the planned Alamein battle. He refused it, believing that Major-General Herbert Lumsden, a cavalry officer, would be more successful in the role.^[55] Horrocks retained command of XIII Corps and was given the task of making a feint to the south in an effort to deceive Axis forces, while the main thrust was made by XXX Corps and X Corps to the north.^[56] Montgomery told Horrocks that he was not to incur tank losses, so XIII Corps' offensive operations were limited to small-scale raids.^[57]

Horrocks' corps was assigned to the reserve after the battle and was reduced in size while the rest of the Eighth Army pursued the retreating Axis forces. At one point the only formation under his command was a salvage unit clearing the wreckage of the battlefield, which he visited daily.^[58] He was appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) on December 31, 1942 for his leadership in both battles at Alamein,^[5][59] and Mentioned in Despatches on June 24, 1943.^[7] On December 9, 1942 he was appointed as commander of X Corps, the lead corps in the advance of the Eighth Army, following Lumsden's dismissal for his poor performance in the pursuit.^[60]

After the fall of Tripoli, Axis forces retreated to prepared defences in Southern Tunisia in front of the Mareth Line built by France before the war. It was here in March 1943 that Horrocks carried out one of his most successful actions of the war. Horrocks' corps, comprised of the 1st Armoured Division, a Free French brigade and the attached New Zealand Corps (which included New Zealand's 2nd Division and the British 8th Armoured Brigade), was ordered to attack as part of Operation Supercharge after XXX Corps failed to breach the line.^[61] Horrocks carried out a flanking manoeuvre through a pass judged by the Germans to be impenetrable, rendering the Mareth position untenable and forcing the Axis into another retreat. Three Italian divisions were destroyed and the German 15th Panzer Division, 21st Panzer Division and 164th Division were heavily depleted in the battle.^[62] Horrocks was then transferred to First Army to take over IX Corps after its previous commander, John Crocker, was wounded in a training accident. Horrocks led IX Corps in the final Allied offensive in Tunisia during April and May 1943, capturing Tunis and accepting the surrender of the remaining Axis forces in its area.^[63] For his service in Tunisia Horrocks was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) on August 5, 1943.^[4] He was also given the rank of temporary lieutenant-general and war substantive major-general.^[64]

Horrocks sustained serious injuries during an air raid at Bizerte in June 1943, when bullets from a strafing German fighter struck his upper chest and carried through the body, piercing his lungs, stomach and intestines.^[65] He had to undergo five operations and spent the next 14 months recovering.^[37] This injury caused him pain for the rest of his life and continuing health problems later led to him retiring early from the army.

[edit] Europe

Lieutenant-General Horrocks addressing men of XXX Corps at Rees, May 26, 1945. Horrocks carried the map board with him when visiting troops to provide front-line soldiers with an overview of the situation.^[66]

Horrocks had recovered sufficiently by June 1944 to meet the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Alan Brooke, and express that he was "very anxious to be given another corps".^[67] After being restored to the acting rank of lieutenant-general in August,^[68] Horrocks assumed command of XXX Corps during the battle around the Falaise gap, where the Allies defeated the German Seventh Army. Montgomery had been dissatisfied with the performance of the corps and its commander, Gerard Bucknall, since the landings.^[69] Horrocks retained control of the formation during the advance through Belgium, capturing Brussels and, at one point, covered 250 miles (400 km) in only six days.^[70] The corps was eventually diverted to capture Antwerp as Germany still controlled the major deep water ports in France, leaving supply lines stretched perilously thin back to the beaches at Normandy. 21st Army Group was operating 300 miles (480 km) from its ports, twice the distance the logistical plans had been based on.^[71] When the city was secured, Montgomery halted XXX Corps because of continuing supply concerns. 11th Armoured Division stopped at the docks and failed to secure the area around the city, leaving the wide Albert Canal to the north.^[72] Horrocks regretted this after the war as he believed there had been enough fuel available for his corps to advance a further 100 miles (160 km),^[73] although it is doubtful this could have been achieved without stopping.^[74] Unknown to the Allies, the delay had unfortunate consequences as XXX Corps was opposed by only a single German division in September 1944.^[75] The pause gave the German forces enough time to regroup around the Scheldt. By the time the Allies were able to attack again, General Student's First Paratroop Army had been brought into the line and had set up strong defensive positions along the opposite side of the canal.^[76] By mid-September, XXX Corps had been diverted to the east. The First Canadian Army would be tasked with clearing the strengthened German defensive line, stretching from Antwerp down both banks of the Scheldt River to the North Sea, in the month-long, costly Battle of the Scheldt.^[77]

A Sherman Firefly advances past knocked out tanks, September 17, 1944. XXX Corps had to advance along a single raised road. This made it easy for German gunners to pick off the leading vehicles, causing delays.

Field Marshal Montgomery made Operation Market Garden the priority for operations of 21st Army Group, diverting the main effort away from Antwerp and the Scheldt, and XXX Corps under Horrocks would lead the ground phase. The operation failed in its objective to reach Arnhem to relieve the British 1st Airborne Division, which had expected to link up with Horrocks' forces in two days.^[78] In the event, 1st Airborne held out for nine with almost three-quarters of the division destroyed or captured.^[79] Postwar analysis of the battle has been torn between a perceived lack of urgency on the part of XXX Corps, and the fact that German defences in the area had been severely underestimated by First Allied Airborne Army's intelligence.^[80] Particularly important was the failure to identify an entire corps of SS armour in Arnhem itself; the intelligence had stated there were only "a few infantry units and between 50 and 100 tanks" in the Netherlands area.^[81] A series of counterattacks by Army Group B under Field Marshal Model kept Horrocks' units on the defensive throughout the battle and delayed the advance by forcing XXX Corps to halt and secure their flank. The terrain over which Horrocks' men had to attack was also unsuitable, restricting the vanguard (Guards Armoured Division) to a single narrow raised highway over flat or flooded terrain.^[82] In addition, the Nijmegen bridge, just 8 miles (13 km) from Arnhem, was not captured on the first day as planned and, by the time XXX Corps arrived two days after D-Day, it still had not been captured.^[83] Horrocks was not personally blamed for the failure of the operation; in fact, during this period the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division of James M. Gavin came under Horrocks' command and Gavin later wrote:

He was truly a unique general officer and his qualities of leadership were greater than any I have ever seen. In lecturing at the American service school I stated frequently that General Horrocks was the finest general officer I met during the war, and the finest corps commander".^[84]

—James Gavin

XXX Corps' advance as part of Operation Veritable, during which the German Army was forced back over the Rhine, employed firepower on a massive scale. By this point the corps included 1,050 artillery pieces as well as other weapons,^[85] and for a short period had no fewer than nine divisions under command.^[86] Prior to the attack, Horrocks accepted an offer to use Bomber Command to attack the town of Cleves in order to assist the advance of 15th (Scottish) Division. The bombers released 1,384 long tons (1,406 t) of high explosive which devastated the town. Horrocks later said that this had been "the most terrible decision I had ever taken in my life" and that he felt "physically sick" when he saw the bombers overhead.^[87] Operation Veritable was successful; XXX Corps broke through into Germany and captured Bremen on April 26, exposing the Sandbostel concentration camp, Stalag X-B. The corps had reached Cuxhaven by the time hostilities ceased.^[86]

Horrocks received two further Mentions in Despatches for his service in north-west Europe on March 22,^[8] and August 9, 1945,^[9] and was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) on July 5, 1945.^[3]

In addition to his British awards and decorations, he was honoured by the governments of Belgium (the Croix de Guerre 1940 with Palm and Grand Officer of the Order of the Crown with Palm), France (Croix de Guerre and Commandeur of the Légion d'honneur), the Netherlands (Knight Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau), Greece (Commander of the Order of King George I) and the United States (Legion of Merit).^[88]

[edit] Post-war career

Horrocks continued to serve in the armed forces after the war, receiving substantive promotion to lieutenant-general in 1946 (with seniority backdated to December 29, 1944).^[89] He briefly commanded the British Army of the Rhine until invalided out of the army in 1949 due to ill-health caused by the wounds he sustained in North Africa.^[90] He was promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the King's Birthday Honours that year,^[2] and served as Honorary Colonel of a TA unit of Royal Artillery.^[91] In 1952 he was appointed Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, a post traditionally held by retired officers of the armed forces.^[92] The Black Rod has the responsibility of supervising the administration of the House of Lords, controlling admission to it, as well as taking part in various ceremonies.

Horrocks began to take an interest in writing and submitted a number of articles on military matters to newspapers and magazines, including the Picture Post and The Sunday Times. This led to a short but successful career as the presenter of a series of military history television programmes, Men in Battle and Epic Battle, produced by Huw Wheldon. In these, Horrocks lectured on great historical battles, describing the movement of troops using map boards and sand tables.^[93] This new-found fame included an appearance on the cover of Radio Times, which embarrassed Horrocks.^[94] He was interviewed extensively for the Thames Television series, The World at War. Following his television career he served on the board of Bovis and continued writing.^[95] He contributed a column to The Sunday Times and edited a series of books covering the history of various regiments of the British Army. His autobiography, A Full Life, was published in 1960 and he co-authored Corps Commander, an account of his battles in North-West Europe, published in 1977.

Horrocks acted as a military consultant for the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far, based on Operation Market Garden.^[96] Edward Fox played Horrocks in the film and later commented:

I enjoyed all of the films but A Bridge Too Far is the one I enjoyed the most because of the character I had to play, Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks. Brian was alive then and I knew him well - we were friends until his death. He was a very particular type of general and it was important that I play the role correctly.^[97]

—Edward Fox

Horrocks died on January 4, 1985 at the age of 89. The memorial service, held at Westminster Abbey on February 26, was attended by Major-General Peter Gillett and Secretary of State for Defence Michael Heseltine, who represented the Queen and Prime Minister respectively. Thirty regiments and numerous other formations and associations were represented at the service.^[98]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 37779, page 5449, November 5, 1946. Retrieved on 2008-04-23. Official despatch by Kenneth Arthur Noel Anderson, GOC-in-C First Army covering events in NW Africa, November 8, 1942–May 13, 1943.
• Escape to Action, the 1960 US edition of Horrocks' autobiography, on the Internet Archive.