Brian Horrocks

Sir Brian Horrocks
Lieutenant General Horrocks, March 1945
Allegiance	British Army
Years of service	1913-49
Rank	Lieutenant-General
Commands	44th (Home Counties) Division 9th Armoured Division XIII Corps XXX Corps British Army of the Rhine
Battles/wars	World War I Russian Civil War Battle of France Battle of Alam Halfa Second Battle of Alamein Mareth Line Falaise gap Operation Market Garden Operation Veritable
Awards	KCB, KBE, DSO, MC
Other work	Black Rod, Television Presenter and 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 World War II. Later in life he gained further fame as a television presenter and as Black Rod in the House of Commons.

Early life & First World War

Horrocks was the son of Sir William Horrocks, a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Like many sons of officers, he received his education in a boarding school in England and later, in 1913, he entered the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, second-bottom of the entry class. He was an unpromising student and may not have received a commission had the circumstances not changed abruptly.

With the outbreak of the First World War he joined the Middlesex Regiment, where he joined the retreat of the army following the Battle of Mons. Horrocks was shot through the stomach when his unit was surrounded at the Battle of Armentières and was captured. He was taken to a hospital where he was interrogated by his German captors, who believed that the British Army were using dum-dum bullets, and was refused a change of clothes or sheets. As a result his wounds became infected. He had a better experience when eventually discharged from the hospital and he made friends with the soldier who escorted him to the prisoner of war camp. Horrocks made a number of escape attempts whilst a prisoner, during one he came within 500 m of the Dutch border before being caught. At one point he was placed in a compound consisting solely of Russian officers as an attempt to prevent his escape attempts. He learnt Russian from them. Years later, when working in the House of Commons, he surprised Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin by greeting them in Russian.

On his return to England Horrocks had trouble adapting to peace-time conditions. He spent four years of back-pay in six weeks, indulging himself in hedonistic trips to London. However, he soon found an opportunity to return to active service.

Inter-war period

After the war Horrocks was posted to Russia as part of the British mission during the Russian Civil War. After landing in Vladivostock 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 driven the Red Army out of Siberia. The Czech troops were planning to return home and replacement Russian troops were urgently required. The British contingent was there to assist in training and arming these replacements. To carry out this task they had only a battalion of regular British soldiers and two small administrative missions, one tasked with arming and training the Russian troops and one to assist in administering the lines of communication for the White Army.

A platoon of British soldiers with fourteen officers, including Horrocks, were given the task of guarding a train full of shells for delivery to the White Army in Omsk, three thousand miles away on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Afterwards they were to report to the British mission to begin training troops. The journey took over a month to complete, with numerous administrative difficulties which Horrocks, as the only Russian speaker, had to overcome.

Horrocks' next destination was Yekaterinburg where he was appointed second in command of a NCO training school attached to the Anglo-Russian Brigade.

He was again captured by the Red Army and spent the next ten months as a prisoner, narrowly surviving a severe case of typhus.

With the end of active service, Horrocks looked for something else to occupy his time and decided to take up the modern pentathlon. He competed in army tournaments and, eventually, the 1924 Paris Olympics. Horrocks spent the remainder of the inter-war years in a variety of postings, including as an instructor at the Staff College, Camberley, and as adjutant for the 9th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment of the Territorial Army. This provided experience of dealing with citizen soldiers which would be invaluable during the war. Horrocks later said they were among his happiest experiences.

World War II

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

When the Second World War broke out Horrocks was again sent to France and commanded the 2nd Battalion, Middlesex Regiment during the retreat to Dunkirk as part of the 3rd Division under General Bernard Montgomery|Bernard Montgomery]].

In 1942 Horrocks was given command of a new formation, the 9th Armoured Division. Horrocks had never been in command of tanks before and this experience proved useful for his next appointment. Having never commanded a division in battle, he was sent to Egypt to command XIII Corps in the Eighth Army under its new commander, Montgomery.

North Africa

Upon arriving in North Africa, Horrocks was put to work implementing the defence of the Alam Halfa ridge from the expected attack by the Afrika Korps. Montgomery, mindful of the need to prevent casualties prior to the planned Second Battle of Alamein, instructed Horrocks that he repel Rommel "without getting unduly mauled in the process". On this basis Horrocks prepared a plan for a purely defensive battle, with his armour dug in around the ridge. When the Germans came to attack they were unable to coax the British armour out towards their 88mm guns and found themselves battered by the Desert Air Force. The battle ended with the Germans having captured the Himeihat hill, at a high cost, and the Allied forces unwilling to attempt to recover it.

Horrocks was next offered the command of X Corps, an armoured corps, in the planned Alamein battle. He refused this command, believing that Major General Herbert Lumsden, a cavalry officer, would be more successful in this role. Horrocks therefore retained the command of XIII Corps. His corps were given the task of attacking to the south, while the main thrust was made by XXX Corps and X Corps. Horrocks was instructed by Montgomery that he was not to incur tank losses, and so XIII Corps' offensive operations were limited to small-scale raids.

After this operation, Horrocks' command was reduced in size while the other corps pursued Rommel. At one point the only formation under Horrocks' command was a salvage unit clearing the wreckage of the battlefield.

The Axis forces next attempted a stand at the Mareth Line, and it was here that Horrocks carried out one of his most successful attacks of the war. His X Corps, including the 1st Armoured Division, carried out a flanking maneuver through a pass judged by the Germans to be impenetrable. This rendered the Mareth position untenable for the Germans and they were again forced to retreat.

Horrocks was seriously injured during an air raid in North Africa and spent the next 14 months recovering. This injury caused him pain for the rest of his life and cut short his career with the army.

Europe

Lieutenant-General Horrocks addressing XXX Corps staff at Rees, May 26 1945.

On his return to service Montgomery requested him to take command of the XXX Corps during the battle around the Falaise gap, where the Allies succeeded in defeating the German Seventh Army. Horrocks retained control of the corps during the push through Belgium, capturing Brussels and, at one point covering 250 miles in only six days. Eventually Horrocks diverted to capture Antwerp, in order to secure the port, a decision he regretted after the war as it allowed German forces vital time to recover. XXX Corps attacked the defences at Walcheren before being ordered to halt due to lack of supplies. This decision by the Allied command later proved costly, as at the time XXX Corps were opposed by a single German division but, by the time they were allowed to attack, the German First Paratroop Army, under General Student, had been brought into the line opposite them.

During Operation Market Garden Horrocks narrowly failed to reach Arnhem to relieve the British 1st Airborne Division. This operation later formed the basis of the film A Bridge Too Far, in which Horrocks was played by Edward Fox. During this period the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division of James M. Gavin came under Horrocks' command. After the war Gavin described Horrocks as "the finest general officer I met during the war, and the finest corps commander".

XXX Corps were ordered to advance as part of Operation Veritable, during which the German Army was forced back over the Rhine. They broke through into Germany and eventually captured Bremen, exposing the Sandbostel concentration camp.

Post-war career

After the war Horrocks continued to serve in the Army, including a short spell in command of the British Army of the Rhine, until 1949, when he was invalided out due to continuing ill-health as a result of the wounds he sustained in North Africa. After this he served as Black Rod and was a director of a construction company. He also had a successful career as a television presenter on a number of series covering military history. Horrocks followed this by editing a series of books covering the history of various regiments of the British Army.

References

• Churchill's Generals, Edited by John Keegan. ISBN 0349113173
• A Full Life, by Sir Brian Horrocks. ISBN 0850521440
• Horrocks: The General Who Led From The Front, by Philip Warner. ISBN 0241113121