CDR Salamander - Fullbore Friday

When things are hopeless, they aren’t.

When you think your war is over, it isn’t.

When it appears your enemies are the masters of your fate, they’re not.

If you have will, you have options.

I give you General Sir Richard Nugent O’Connor, British Army.

His life traces an arc from imperial height through remarkable decline.

Borrowed generously from the WW2 Database:

Richard Nugent O’Connor was born in the Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir, British India in 1889. His father was a major in the Royal Irish Fusiliers, and his mother was the daughter of a former governor of India’s central provinces.

The first decade of his life was spent at the end of the Victorian Age in the jewel of the Empire, before he returned to Britain, as was standard for the day, to attend school.

In England, United Kingdom, he attended Tonbridge Castle School in 1899 in Tonbridge, Kent; The Towers School in 1902 in Crowthorne, Berkshire; Wellington College in 1903 in Crowthorne, Berkshire; and the Royal Military College in 1908 in Sandhurst, Berkshire. He was commissioned a junior officer with the 2nd Battalion of the Cameronians regiment of the British Army in Sep 1909. In Jan 1910, he was assigned to Colchester, Essex, England for signals and rifle training. Between 1911 and 1912, he was assigned to Malta as a Regimental Signals Officer. During WW1, he served with the 7th Division, seeing action at Arras and Bullecourt in France and Piave River area in Italy, and was awarded the Military Cross, the Distinguished Service Order with Bar, and the Italian Silver Medal of Military Valor.

Just take a moment to consider how you must have viewed yourself and your nation as a man of his age—a child at the end of the Victorian Age, brought to adulthood in the Edwardian Age, then forged in your 20s in the Great War, when so many of your peers never survived.

After WW1, he was reverted to his permanent rank of captain. Between Apr 1919 and Dec 1919, he served as a regimental adjutant. In 1920, he attended Staff College, Camberley, Surrey, England. Between 1921 and 1924, he was a brigade major with the 5th Brigade, also known as the Experimental Brigade; in this role he tested new combined arms tactics involving traditional infantry and artillery advancing in conjunction with tanks and aircraft. Between Feb 1924 and 1925, he served as the adjutant of Cameronians regiment. Between 1925 and 1927, he served as a company commander at Sandhurst. Betwen Oct 1927 and Jan 1930, he was an instructor at the Staff College at Camberley. In 1930, he served with the 1st Battalion of The Cameronians in Egypt, then with the same unit between 1931 and 1932 in Lucknow, India. Between Apr 1932 and Jan 1935, he was attached to the War Office in London, England. In 1935, he attended the Imperial Defence College in London. In Apr 1936, he was promoted to the rank of colonel and was made a temporary brigadier to take command of the Peshawar Brigade in northwestern India. In Sep 1938, he was promoted to the rank of major general and was made the commanding officer of the British 7th Division in Palestine; he was also concurrently made the military governor of Jerusalem. In Aug 1939, the 7th Division was transferred to Mersa Matruh, Egypt, where he would be located with the European War began.

And again, consider his moment in time at the dawn of the Second World War.

Shortly after the Italian entry into the war in Jun 1940, O’Connor was made the commanding officer of the Western Desert Force. The Italians attacked Egypt on 13 Sep 1940, moving 60 miles into Egypt and capturing Sidi Barrani. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general in Nov 1940. Through Operation Compass launched in Dec 1940, however, he was able to push the Italians back into Libya, capturing large numbers of prisoners meanwhile. In early Jan 1941, the Western Desert Force was redesignated XIII Corps, and on 9 Jan he continued the offensive, capturing Tobruk on 22 Jan and then securing a surrender from a large group of surviving Italians on 7 Feb. The offensive campaign he orchestrated advanced 800 miles, captured 130,000 prisoners, captured 400 tanks, and captured 1,292 guns, all at the cost of only about 1,800 casualties (500 killed). For his achievement, he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. In Feb 1941, after the offensive was halted due to the situation in Greece, he was made the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief the British Troops in Egypt. In March, newly arrived German General Erwin Rommel launched an offensive toward Egypt, and O’Connor moved forward to advise Lieutenant General Philip Neame on defenses. On 6 Apr, O’Connor and Neame, while travelling to their headquarters which had been withdrawn from Maraua to Timimi in Libya, were captured by a German patrol near Martuba.

With most Generals, that would be the end of their war. But not O’Connor.

He would spend the following two and half years as a prisoner of war, being held at Castello di Vincigliata near Florence, Italy for a large portion of that time. After failing to escape by climbing the castle walls, he was punished with a month’s solitary confinement. Although he was initially successful with his second attempt by using a tunnel he and others dug between Oct 1942 and Mar 1943, he and Major General Adrian Carton de Wiart were captured at Bologna, Italy; this resulted in another month’s solitary confinement.

We’ve covered de Wiart before. Give it a read if you missed it.

In Sep 1943, he made his third escape attempt while being transferred to another place of imprisonment, reaching General Harold Alexander at Bari, Italy on 21 Dec 1943. O’Connor was given command of VIII Corps in Jan 1944. With this corps, he arrived in Normandie, France on 11 Jun 1944 and directed Operation Epsom, Operation Jupiter, and Operation Goodwood. The VIII Corps was placed in reserve in Aug 1944, but he remained an unofficial adviser to Bernard Montgomery. VIII Corps played a minor role in Operation Market Garden, during which it indirectly supported the XXX Corps. In Nov 1944, he was relieved of his command of VIII Corps and was made the commanding officer of Eastern Command in India. It was said that Montgomery was not entirely pleased with O’Connor’s performance, and either made no protest when Field Marshal Alan Brooke made the transfer, or that Montgomery might have initiated this transfer himself. O’Connor’s transfer to India marked an end to his combat career.

He lived until 1981.

If you’re interested in the story of his escape from captivity at Vincigliata Castle, Mark Felton has written a great book on it, Castle of the Eagles: Escape from Mussolini’s Colditz.

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