1. John Crocker served as both a private soldier and a junior officer in the First World War.
44 Facts About John Crocker
1. 2.
An outstanding soldier, John Crocker was highly regarded by both his superiors, most notably Field Marshal The Viscount Alanbrooke, and his subordinates, including the future Field Marshal Lord Carver, but he remains relatively unknown.
3.
John Crocker was every bit the gentleman officer of his period, even if his upbringing was anything but typical.
4.
The son of Mary and Isaac Crocker, a secretary with the Champion Reef Gold Mining Company, John Crocker was born on 3 January 1896, one of five siblings who lived in a modest Exbury Road dwelling in Catford, Lewisham.
5.
John Crocker's tutor liked things done properly, something Crocker would always demand of his own charges.
6.
Over a year after the outbreak of the First World War, which began in August 1914, John Crocker enlisted into the British Army as a private soldier in the Artists Rifles, a training corps for potential officers, in November 1915.
7.
John Crocker was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant into the Machine Gun Corps on 26 January 1917.
8.
John Crocker had a distinguished career in the war and in April and July 1918 was awarded, respectively, the Military Cross and Distinguished Service Order.
9.
John Crocker fought with his company, which in early March 1918 became part of the 59th Machine Gun Battalion, in the Battle of Passchendaele in mid-1917 and in the German Army's Spring Offensives of 1918.
10.
John Crocker was promoted to temporary rank of lieutenant on 26 July 1918.
11.
John Crocker stuck to his battery until it was blown up, and then, going forward to the barrage, he salved two guns and took them forward to support the infantry, where the situation was uncertain.
12.
John Crocker continued to serve on the Western Front, fighting in the Hundred Days Offensive, until the war came to an end on 11 November 1918 with the signing of the Armistice with Germany.
13.
From 13 January 1922 John Crocker was seconded to the Royal Tank Corps to specialise in the then new field of armoured warfare.
14.
John Crocker's secondment became a permanent transfer in August 1923.
15.
John Crocker then went to India, where he attended the Staff College, Quetta from 1928 to 1929.
16.
John Crocker was an excellent student there, with his superiors noting his "strong and independent character".
17.
John Crocker earned a rare A-grade, which marked him as an "officer of exceptional merit and outstanding ability".
18.
John Crocker had a period of secondment to the Royal Tank School in India from September 1925.
19.
Promotion in the inter-war army was slow, and John Crocker's advancement was evidenced by a succession of brevet ranks: brevet major on 1 January 1935, brevet lieutenant colonel on 1 July 1936 and brevet colonel on 1 February 1938.
20.
John Crocker was not to remain there long as on 21 April 1940 he was promoted to the acting rank of brigadier and was appointed to command of the 3rd Armoured Brigade in place of Vyvyan Pope.
21.
Nine days later John Crocker was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services in France.
22.
John Crocker continued training his division for the next several months.
23.
However, in mid-October 1941 John Crocker, who had by now commanded his division for just over a year, relinquished command of the division to Major-General Herbert Lumsden upon being selected to command the 2nd Armoured Group in Home Forces.
24.
The idea was short-lived and he was not to remain there long, as on 16 March 1942 John Crocker was promoted to the acting rank of lieutenant-general and was given command of XI Corps, taking over from Lieutenant-General Noel Irwin, who was being posted to command IV Corps in the Mediterranean theatre.
25.
Together with his corps HQ, John Crocker departed for North Africa in the spring of 1943, with his HQ becoming operational on 24 March 1943.
26.
John Crocker took under command his old 6th Armoured Division, now under Major-General Charles Keightley, along with the 46th Infantry Division, under Major-General Harold Freeman-Attwood, and Major-General Raymond Briggs's 1st Armoured Division, which had been transferred over from the British Eighth Army.
27.
Also under command for the operation was the US 34th Infantry Division, under Major General Charles W Ryder, which Crocker ordered to seize a key position to the right of the pass.
28.
John Crocker was, nonetheless, appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 5 August 1943 for his command in Tunisia, and General Sir Harold Alexander, commander of the Allied 18th Army Group, believed John Crocker to have performed well throughout his relatively brief time in action.
29.
John Crocker took over from Lieutenant-General Gerard Bucknall, who had requested demotion to temporary major-general to command a division overseas.
30.
John Crocker was to aided throughout by his BGS, Philip Balfour.
31.
On D-Day, 6 June 1944, John Crocker had a larger task than any other Allied corps commander: he had to control two landing beaches and an airborne assault.
32.
Colonel Hermann-Eberhard Wildermuth, in charge of German operations, urged a civilian evacuation, yet only 10,000 left, as John Crocker refused the proposal.
33.
John Crocker was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in October 1944 for his performance in the Normandy invasion and its aftermath.
34.
In June 1945, with the war in Europe over, John Crocker returned to the United Kingdom to take over Southern Command from Lieutenant-General Sidney Kirkman, who took over I Corps from John Crocker.
35.
John Crocker remained for two years as GOC-in-C of Southern Command, until in 1947 he moved on to be Commander-in-Chief Middle East Land Forces in succession to Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey during the final stages of the Palestine Emergency.
36.
John Crocker was advanced to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the 1947 Birthday Honours.
37.
In 1948 Montgomery recommended John Crocker to be his successor as CIGS, but the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, appointed the better-known and more senior General Sir William Slim, who had commanded the Fourteenth Army in the Burma Campaign during the war, much to Montgomery's annoyance.
38.
John Crocker held a number of honorary appointments throughout the postwar years, including Aide de Camp to the King, Colonel Commandant of the Royal Tank Regiment, and Honorary Colonel of the Royal Armoured Corps.
39.
John Crocker was a Member of the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation.
40.
John Crocker was not much of a talker and he was a lousy self-promoter because of it.
41.
John Crocker's influence was not limited to the period of the war either.
42.
John Crocker was intimately involved with the development of the British armoured forces during the 1920s and 1930s, and after the war he oversaw the production of the doctrine and training publications that would guide the British Army for much of the Cold War.
43.
John Crocker served as Commander-in-Chief Middle East Land Forces, and he finished his career as Adjutant-General to the Forces.
44.
Field Marshal Montgomery would have preferred it if John Crocker had retired as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, but in 1949 Prime Minister Clement Attlee chose Sir William Slim instead.