Page 125 - They Also Served

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Brian Horrocks 1914.
The son of an army doctor, Brian
Gwynne Horrocks was born in India
on 7th September 1895. Educated
at Uppingham School, he was an
indifferent scholar and entered
Sandhurst in October 1912, in his own
words, ‘bottom but one’ of the intake.
Such was his poor progress that only
the declaration of war in August 1914
guaranteed his commission. Posted to the 1st Battalion, Middlesex Regiment during the retreat from Mons, there is little doubt that Horrocks had the worst war of all future generals for, on 21st October, his troops were surrounded and, shot in the leg, he was captured.
Horrocks was a persistent escaper, once getting to within a mile of the Dutch border; he also used his time in captivity to learn German and Russian. Released in November 1918, he was awarded the MC for his conduct as a POW. Finding his new-found freedom difficult to adjust to, he spent four years’ worth of back pay in a monumental spree in London. Posted to Russia as part of the British intervention force, he was captured by the Red Army and spent another ten months as a POW. The inter-war years saw him take up modern pentathlon, competing in the 1924 Olympic Games. In May 1940, he took command of the 2nd Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, part of the BEF in France.
With his battalion directly under the control of the commander of 3rd Division, Bernard Montgomery, Horrocks caught his commander’s eye and, during the retreat to Dunkirk, was given temporary command of the 11th Brigade. In March 1942, he took command of the 9th Armoured Division, and, in August 1942, with the war in the Western Desert going badly, the whole Eight Army leadership structure was removed. Montgomery took command and called for Horrocks to lead XIII Corps. Immediately in action defending the Alam Halfa Ridge, the corps repelled Rommel’s attacks, raising the morale of the whole army. Pip Roberts, one of the brigade commanders, wrote: ‘Horrocks has the wonderful knack of inspiring confidence and enthusiasm wherever he goes’.
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