Richard O'Connor
General Sir Richard Nugent O'Connor, KT, GCB, DSO & Bar, MC (21 August 1889 – 17 June 1981) was a senior British Army officer who fought in both the First and Second World Wars, and commanded the Western Desert Force in the early years of the Second World War. He was the field commander for Operation Compass, in which his forces destroyed a much larger Italian army – a victory which nearly drove the Axis from Africa, and in turn, led Adolf Hitler to send the Afrika Korps under Erwin Rommel to try to reverse the situation. O'Connor was captured by a German reconnaissance patrol during the night of 7 April 1941 and spent over two years in an Italian prisoner of war camp. He eventually escaped after the fall of Mussolini in the autumn of 1943. In 1944 he commanded VIII Corps in the Battle of Normandy and later during Operation Market Garden. In 1945 he was General Officer in Command of the Eastern Command in India and then, in the closing days of British rule in the subcontinent, he headed Northern Command. His final job in the army was Adjutant-General to the Forces in London, in charge of the British Army's administration, personnel and organisation.
For other people named Richard O'Connor, see Richard O'Connor (disambiguation).
Sir Richard O'Connor
21 August 1889
Srinagar, British India
17 June 1981 (aged 91)
King Edward VII's Hospital, London, England
United Kingdom
1908–1948
936
Northern Command, India (1945–46)
Eastern Command, India (1945)
VIII Corps (1944)
British Troops in Egypt (1941)
XIII Corps (1941)
Western Desert Force (1940–41)
6th Infantry Division (1939–40)
7th Infantry Division (1938–39)
Peshawar Brigade (1936–38)
2nd Infantry Battalion, Honourable Artillery Company (1917–19)
Commandant of the Army Cadet Force, Scotland
Colonel of the Cameronians[1]
Lord Lieutenant of Ross and Cromarty[2]
Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland[3]
In honour of his war service, O'Connor was recognised with the highest level of knighthood in two different orders of chivalry. He was also awarded the Distinguished Service Order (twice), the Military Cross, the French Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour, and served as aide-de-camp to King George VI. He was also mentioned in despatches nine times for actions in the First World War, once in Palestine in 1939 and three times in the Second World War.[4]
Early life[edit]
Richard Nugent O'Connor was born in Srinagar, Kashmir, India, on 21 August 1889. His father, Maurice O'Connor, was a major in the Royal Irish Fusiliers, and his mother, Lilian Morris, was the daughter of a former governor of India's central provinces.[4][5][6][7] He attended Tonbridge Castle School in 1899 and The Towers School in Crowthorne in 1902.[8] In 1903, aged 13, and after his father's death in an accident, he moved to Wellington College.[9] "His career there was not distinguished in any way", however, although he enjoyed his time there.[10]
Following this, he went to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst in January 1908.[5] Despite his success in later life, his time there, as at Wellington (only a few miles away from Sandhurst), was not remarkable, and he did not mention his time there even in his later life. [11] A year ahead of him at the college was a man who would play a significant role in O'Connor's future military career and life. This was Bernard Montgomery, about two years older than O'Connor, although it is unknown if the two men knew of each other at this very early stage of their military careers.[12]
Passing out 38th in the order of merit, in September of the following year O'Connor, anxious to join a Scottish regiment, was commissioned,[13][4] as a second lieutenant and posted to the 2nd Battalion of his new regiment, Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), the regiment of his choice, recruiting from Glasgow and Lanarkshire, and with which he was to maintain close ties with for the rest of his life. The battalion was initially stationed in Aldershot when O'Connor joined them in October 1909 before being rotated, in January 1910, to Colchester.[14] It was here where he received signals and rifle training, after attending courses for both, resulting in his being appointed a regimental signals officer for the former, and becoming a distinguished marksman after attending the Small Arms School at Hythe, Kent.[15] In September 1911 the battalion sailed for Malta where it was to remain for the next three years as part of a Malta brigade, with O'Connor, now a lieutenant (having been promoted to that rank in May),[16][4] continuing in his role as regimental signals officer.[8] [17][18] By now it was becoming obvious that a war in Europe was on the horizon. As a result, for O'Connor, who at some point was appointed the Malta brigade's signals officer, the years of 1913 and 1914 were spent in training the men under his command for the duties that they would one day have to perform in battle.[19][4]
Post-war[edit]
From 1946 to 1947 he was Adjutant-General to the Forces and aide-de-camp general to the King.[63] His career as adjutant general was to be short-lived, however. After a disagreement over a cancelled demobilisation for troops stationed in the Far East, O'Connor offered his resignation in September 1947, which was accepted.[64] Montgomery, by then the CIGS in succession to Brooke, maintained that he had been sacked, rather than resigned, for being, "not up to the job."[63] Not long after this he was installed as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.[4][69]