General Sir Brian Horrocks....

S

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What is the board opinion of the leadership qualities of General Sir Brian Horrocks?? and if he wasn't the best English commander(overall) in WW2 then opine on who was.
 
this man, it would appear, is the english equivelant of the american general omar bradly...he could be the equivelant of the british soldiers general. one with a very fine war record but possibly the real genius behind montgomery. I like him.... :D
 
I too , could find no major flaws in his direction Mark , and believe that would likely be the consensus(although it would appear to be a rather small sampling of you and I :lol: ). I am wondering though , how many would tab him as the best overall that England had.....perhaps Alexander??
 
Interesting post on a much overlooked British General. However, the question was asked if he was the greatest British General of WWII and in my most humble opinion, he was not. That honour most go the FM Slim, commander of the 14th Army in Burma who, to quote the title of his autobiography, took an Army from defeat to victory. If anyone is unfamiliar with Slim I suggest you read Defeat to Victory. I dare you not to be impressed! :twisted:
 
As for General Horrocks, in my opinion he should be noted and discussed under a separate forum topic for Great Britain like the

Who was the worst American general or battlefield tactician?

He made blunder after blunder and cost the lives of a good many American airborne warriors and British soldiers. Well, for those of you who are visual, I suggest you see the movie, The Bridge Too Far, there you will at least get an idea of the leadership skills of General Horrocks. Despite my negative bias and dislike for his military operations, I still think General Douglas MacArthur was still far worse.
 
david: i really have to call you on that one.

In all the searching i have done for this particular General, no where was there any mention of the fiasco scenarios you mentioned in your post, especially market garden that are directly attribitable to general Horricks tactical or leadership skills.

Can you at least post a link or a reference to back up what you have said about this general? Because in truth, like i said, i havent found anything in the references backing your claim.

not trying to start a flame war...just interested as this is very counter to what i have seen... :D
 
I have to agree with Mark here , there is no indication that Horrocks was in any way culpable for the Arnem scenario , nor was it an indication of Horrocks ability or lack thereof....and BTW David , I re-enact WW2 British airborne , so I have seen my Market Garden DVD enough to where I can recite the lines before the actors do :lol:
 
General Sir Brian Horrocks and other commanders at the operational level had sufficient evidence to merit a serious rethinking of the airborne portion of this operation, but chose not to believe the data to be reliable and worthy. Although there are numerous other examples especially noted in history books regarding this operation as well as others, I thought this report from a professor at the United States Air War College might provide the reader with some insights. Nonetheless, despite the fact that even Dutch Generals tried to persuade him to take another route, Horrocks chose to ignore the warnings placing his men in unnecessarily harm’s way. In addition, this historical research report also eloquently notes what an egotistical hardhead General Montgomery was and how Eisenhower sided with him over Patton in this particular situation.

http://www.iwar.org.uk/sigint/resources/market-garden/bradley.pdf

I do hope this proves helpful for those of you who are interested in researching this topic a little more thoroughly?
 
thats why we asked for it... :D

okay after studying the document...the only mention of horricks was of his own uneasiness at ordering an attack by his own corps on the dike type roads. It would seem that the general was fully aware of the danger his troops might encounter..but since the plan rolled, so did he. He merely followed his orders.

Now, i really dont understand..is your whole testament on horricks based simply on this intelligence report? or is it more directed towards a faulty plan, made in seven days, that ignored the dutch intelligence and photographic evidence that showed, to the contrary, that Mongomery and His American counterparts really did try to go a bridge to far on this one?

i will defitnetly look more at the horricks question... :D
 
Mark ,
After reading the article , I have come to the same conclusion.....there is simply nothing in it which berates Horrocks ability as a General.....if anything it proves that he had good instincts.

JHR
 
Perhaps this article was not a great example as the focus was on intelligence, but there is a great deal of information on his mistakes including his own memoirs. Okay, each to his own opinion, but I still think Horrocks rates poorly in my opinion and is right up there with Generals Sherman and Grant of the American Civil War. Nonetheless, as a commander, he failed to yield to the intelligence. In what I would consider a costly blunder, Horrocks proposed to use all of this manpower and high explosives in a sudden, massive attack by three British divisions, each of which would concentrate its energies on an exceptionally narrow front. The Guards Armoured Div. and 43 (Wessex) Div. were in reserve, ready to pass through and exploit south in the early stages of the attack. This account of the Canadian role in Veritable should not obscure the fact that the overwhelming majority of men involved in the battles were British troops fighting under Horrocks’ leadership of XXX Corps. Casualties to the British forces were four times higher than the Canadian total. The road to Cleve was the focal point of his attack and their main task was the seizure of the curved ridge overlooking the ruined city. With the road flooded to depth of two feet, operations were at a standstill when Horrocks decided, on the basis of information that part of the ridge had been captured, to order the 43 (Wessex) Division to pass through the 15th Scottish and burst out onto the plain beyond. In his own memoirs, Horrocks admits that this decision was "one of the worst mistakes I made in the war" because the arrival of 43 Div. "caused one of the worst traffic jams of the war" and made the Scottish Division's task even more difficult costing a great number of lives. With this being said, I am not removing a great deal of blame from Montgomery either. Furthermore, I think it is important to note that a great many soldiers lost their lives in WW-II due to overly eager generals too quick to attack with little efforts aimed at softening their targets. Although Market-Garden is considered a strategic failure, I think all the men of the airborne units could say that they had done their part admirably.
 
I see then David .

Your opinion seems to differ from most.....who in your opinion was the top 'overall' English general , since you don't seem to like most any of the Allied commanders?

JHR
 
Hm

What a ridiculous comment to make. Who makes a judgement about anyone from watching a film? You certainly dont judge history from any Hollywood film (Titantic, The Patriot, U-571, Saving Private Halfwit, Braveheart need I go on?)

The best judge of Horrocks was Horrocks himself. He very honestly states in his autobiography that he failed to swing left to cut off a German army in the estuary and also failed to clear the approaches to the port of Antwerp.

And by the way, Horrocks was seriously ill during MARKET GARDEN which may have impaired his judgement
 
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