Sir Brian Gwynne Horrocks Lieutenant-General, KCB, KBE, DSO, MC (7 September 1895 – 4 January 1985) was a British army 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 he was a television presenter, authored books on military history, and was Black Rod in the House of Lords for 14 years.
In 1940 Horrocks commanded a battalion during the Battle of France, the first time he served under Bernard Montgomery, the most prominent British commander of the war. Montgomery later identified Horrocks as one of his most able officers, appointing him to corps commands in both North Africa and Europe. In 1943, Horrocks was seriously wounded and took more than a year to recover before returning to command a corps in Europe. It is likely that this period out of action meant he missed out on promotion; his contemporary corps commanders in North Africa, Leese and Dempsey, went on to command at army level and above. Horrocks’ wound caused continuing health problems and led to his early retirement from the army after the war.
Since 1945, Horrocks has been regarded by some as one of the most successful British Army generals of the war, “a man who really led, a general who talked to everyone, down to the simplest private soldier”, and the “beau ideal of a corps commander”. Dwight D. Eisenhower called him “the outstanding British general under Montgomery”.
