A Full Life, Sir Brian Horrocks

Discussion in 'Books, Films, TV, Radio' started by Jaeger, Aug 10, 2010.

  1. Jaeger

    Jaeger Senior Member

    Today I finished A Full Life by Jorrocks. I was sat outside my house having late morning tea with a view resembeling Peterhead just outside Aberdeen.

    It would seem fitting to be in the outdoors close to nature when I turned the last page of Sir Brians book, he was a keen sportsman himself.

    I really did not know what to expect from the book. From all quarters Jorrocks have received nothing but praise. A brilliant Corps commander, keen and charming. I remember that people found Edward Fox did a sterling job at portraying him in "a bridge too far."

    The book starts off with Jorrocks relating a happy childhood. His father was in the Army, and did groundbreaking work in the medical sphere. Young Brian was in no doubt that he would have a career in the Army aswell.

    He describes himself as idle and passed "into Sandhurst bottom but one". The pace of the story gather momentum when describing WW1. Horrocks was captured early on and the rest of the war is a long escape process. Horrocks sums up the four years in prison as a good learning experience for the next war. In trying to escape he had to think like the camp guards and putting oneself in the role of the opponent is a useful skill in warfare and "it put me one step ahead of the enemy".

    Next up is the interwar years. For most careers that would be dreary reading, but Horrocks goes to Siberia to help the Whites against the Reds. He evetually gets caught and is yet again imprisoned. The Russian escapade is well written and it is obvious that these irregular daunting missions is right up Jorrocks alley.

    The second half of the interwar years is about Sir Brian cleaning up his act and getting down to proper study of his craft. We are introduced to a plethora of well known British officers, and Horrocks has nothing but praise about them. He is very cleaver about this in highlighting one special trait for each of his fellow braves.

    Next up is the war. BEF, North Africa, Injury, Low countries, Germany, Win.

    I don't want to go into detail on the war, and neither does Jorrocks. He opts for highlighting special episodes for people or actions that deserve more praise than they have got.

    The rest of the book starts with his short tenure as commander of the BAOR before beeing invalided out of the Army.

    He is offered the Black Rod and accepts, a job I knew nothing of as a dumb Norwegian grunt, but that doesn't matter because Sir Brian describe what it involves.

    Sir Brian continnue to tell how he got into television, and end the book on explaining that every person should "have a private lane down which he can escape to his other world- preferably as far removed as possible in feeling and tempo from his everyday existence."

    Sir Brian tells very little about himself during the book. My quest was to find out what made him a formidable leader. After slowing down the pace it dawned on me that it was between the lines.

    In describing how he served under Monty (one of the most interesting parts for my own part) and how he related to the others it dawned on me. Sir Brian had loads of leadership.

    Leadership goes in four directions upwards to your superiors, horizontaly to your peers, downward to your subjects and inwards leading yourself.

    I really enjoyed this book. I have been hunting it for some time now and I don't regret having to pay £ 33 for the collectible issue on Amazon.

    I have also received "Horrocks the General who lead from the front" and I am looking forward to reading it and see if my perception of leadership is as highlighted as I think it should be.
     
    dbf likes this.
  2. Dutchtroop

    Dutchtroop Junior Member

    Thanks for this review. I immediately ordered a copy.

    Is he telling something about his family as I do remember I have had contact with a cousin of his by mail years ago.
     
  3. Jaeger

    Jaeger Senior Member

    There is little in the book about his family. Most is concerning the understanding that he received when he managed to drink up his four years of pay (whilst beeing a prisoner in Germany during WW1) in a relative short period of time. He talks more about his father than any other family member. Especially regarding his strenghts and support during the interwar years.
     
  4. TomTAS

    TomTAS Very Senior Member

    Hi Jaeger,

    At some point I will have to read this too, I better not say how much mine cost and it is signed too.. I also have Sir Brian Horrocks Corps Commander..

    Cheers
    Tom
     
  5. Jaeger

    Jaeger Senior Member

    Hello Tom.

    I will leave Corps Commander for Christmas. I am currently starting on "Pip" Roberts Desert to the Baltic.
     
  6. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    Also Horrocks could relate history as it was.Unlike some of those "historians" who project a Blue Peter style.
     
  7. Oldman

    Oldman Very Senior Member

    Perhaps he was in Monty's shadow to long a very good book with amusing parts, especially when he was talking to the war workers. he was very good on tv in the series on WW2 battles knowlegable and able to talk about the phases with interest and he never talked down to the camera.
     
  8. Tom Canning

    Tom Canning WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Jaeger -
    I have been trying for this book for many years - it seemed to be out of print for a long time - so I shall try anoher hunt for it
    Cheers
     
  9. Oldman

    Oldman Very Senior Member

    Tom
    Try Abebooks they seem to be a good source, i was lucky I found mine at a coffee morning book sale.
     
  10. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

    Attached Files:

    Jaeger likes this.
  11. Paul Reed

    Paul Reed Ubique

    A good book, as is Corps Commander. His programmes from the 1960s seemed to have survived in the BBC archive and may well form part of that archive which is due to go online.
     
  12. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    One of Lieutenant general Sir Brian Horrocks quotes was,

    "The British Army always fights uphill, in the rain, at the junction of two maps"

    Regards
    Tom
     
  13. Phaethon

    Phaethon Historian

    One of Lieutenant general Sir Brian Horrocks quotes was,

    "The British Army always fights uphill, in the rain, at the junction of two maps"

    Regards
    Tom

    I hadn't heard that, that's utterly brilliant. Especially since I've just been speaking to a coldstream veteran about the assault on the hill Djebel bou kourine, which went a bit wrong on account of it being between two maps. I don't know if it was raining at the time, but in early 1943 Tunisia, it probably was.
     
  14. Tom Canning

    Tom Canning WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    The 6th South African Armoured div had their maps folded in such a way that they thought they had captured Chiusi near Lago Trasimeno - they had only got as far as the Station - Jerry was waiting for them at the Town - half a mile away !
    They got new maps !
    Cheers
     
  15. Tom Canning

    Tom Canning WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Jaeger-
    found "The good life" in San Francisco (!) - but the theiving b***** wants 57 GBP's ...so I can wait.....I have " The General who leads from the front" - that only cost 15 GBP's !!!

    cheers
     
  16. Jaeger

    Jaeger Senior Member

    Tom Canning

    Typical that they go for those prices. The book is out of print, and the would-be readers will eventually pay to get their mitts on it ;)
     
  17. Jaeger

    Jaeger Senior Member

    dbf

    That latest clipping was priceless.

    Getting a "there's a good chap" in Montys handwriting, with Harold Alexander's "I agree" just fantastic.
     
  18. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

    From The Montreal Gazette, January 14, 1961

    Told with Fluency and Candor

    A FULL LIFE, By Sir Brian Horrocks


    Reviewed by Roy Kervin

    A visit by Prime Minister Churchill forms a high point in the memoirs of any Second World War soldier. So it was with Sir Brian Horrocks. Beyond that general statement, the experience doesn’t follow through.

    It was summer, in 1942. Alexander had taken over command of the whole Mediterranean theatre; Montgomery had been appointed his field commander. Horrocks was selected by Montgomery to command one of the three corps which made up the 8th Army.

    Both Montgomery and Horrocks were new to the desert and the seasoned “Desert Rats” didn’t think very much of them - yet. When the two of them had been in their new posts only a week, the Prime Minister made his visit. Montgomery had already given Horrocks (whom he always called “Jorrocks”), careful instructions about the role of his corps during the coming battle of Alam Halfa, the prelude to El Alamein. He was to remain on the defensive, saving his tanks for the offensive to come.

    “That’s no good,” said Churchill, when Horrocks explained his particular job. “Trouble with you generals is that you are defensive minded. Why don’t you attack? That’s the way to win battles, not b sitting down in defence.”

    Horrocks heard afterwards that on the way back to Cairo the P.M. advised Monty “He’s no good, get rid of him.”

    But Monty deserved his subordinate’s admiration for more than sound strategy. Monty’s reply was, “Look here, sir, you stick to your sphere and I’ll stick to mine.”

    “The visit,” recalls Horrocks, “did an enormous amount of good to everyone but me.”

    It is quite likely that other important personages have had similar inglorious experiences - but it isn’t often that they are recalled with such candour in their memoirs. This is the particular charm of Horrocks’ writing: he is not trying to impress; he is jus telling his story and he doesn’t leave things out just because they might not show him in the best light.

    His story is particularly worth telling. The fact that many wartime memoirs have appeared before it does not affect its appeal at all. Partly this is because of the manner of the telling; partly this is because Horrocks was not a staff man working with maps and figures, and heads of state, but a field commander, working directly with troops, his own and the enemy’s.

    From the beginning, Horrocks’ story deserves the unmilitary title he has given it.

    When the First World War began, he had just taken his final examinations at Sandhurst and had no assurance at all that he had passed. Quickly mobilised, he fought for two months in Belgium as a platoon commander, was wounded near Ypres and taken prisoner. Horrocks spent the next four years in German prison camps, becoming one of the most notorious “escapers” but never quite getting across the Dutch border.

    During one period of his captivity, he shared quarters with several hundred captured Russian officers and learned to speak Russian. So, in 1919, he was sent to Siberia to serve with the British military mission there which was helping the fight against the Bolsheviks. This disastrous expedition ended with Horrocks’ group being prisoners of the Russians for some months.

    The next few years included service in Silesia, Ireland, as pentathlon contender in the Olympic Games of 1924, staff college and training of Territorials. Horrocks was chief instructor at the staff college, Camberley, when the “phoney war” ended with the German invasion of Holland. He served as a battalion commander and as a (temporary) brigade commander during the retreat to Dunkirk.

    Two years of “exercises” in the U.K. followed the evacuation, then the posting to Egypt. Horrocks served under Montgomery (and for a time under our General Crerar in the Low Countries), across the desert and from Normandy to Berlin. With sound reasoning, he defends Monty when he feels he was right, but he also points out times when he feels Monty was wrong.

    Many Canadians have seen Horrocks in his TV series, retelling the stories of the Second World War’s major battles, and have been delighted by his charming fluency. They will find his book just as happy a discovery.
     
  19. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

    From The Glasgow Herald, August 20, 1966

    My Experiences with Russians - White and Red
    By Sir Brian Horrocks

    Although the final triumph of getting over the frontier and getting back to England was denied me, of this I am certain, that these four years in captivity were not wasted. I am not suggesting that life in a prison camp is an essential prelude to high command in battle - far from it.

    All the same I had learned at an early stage and in a hard school to stand on my own feet and make my own decisions, often in a split second. I had also acquired the useful habit of thinking things out from the enemy point of view so that I might always be one jump ahead. These were lessons which served me well later on.

    So at the age of 22, although lacking in conventional military experience, I was far more self-confident and sure of myself than is normal in a young Regular regimental officer of that age.

    During my time in Germany I had learned to speak Russian. So when just after the war the War Officer called for volunteers to go to Russia and help the White Armies in their struggle against he Bolsheviks I immediately applied, and after a lengthy voyage in a cargo ship almost round the world I arrived at Vladivostok, from where I was despatched via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Ekaterinburg, now called Sverdlovsk - chiefly famous as being the place where the last Czar and his family were murdered after the revolution.

    Our tank was to equip and train the White Armies in the use of the large quantities of war material left over from the First World War. After a variety of different jobs I was finally appointed liaison officer with the 1st Siberian (White) Army.

    +++

    By now, however, the military situation was getting steadily worse. The trouble was that as soon as a White Russian battalion arrived at the front - having been trained and equipped by us - it almost invariably deserted en bloc to the Red Workers’ paradise on the other side of the line.

    In October, 1919, the White front disintegrated altogether, and I received orders to make my way back as best I could to our base at Vladivostok, some 3,000 miles away. This would have been a difficult task at any time because most of the people inhabiting the country in between sympathised with the Reds, but it was made infinitely worse by the rapid approach of the Siberian winter, when the whole country becomes frozen solid with temperatures down to 40 degrees below zero.

    So began one of the most difficult and depressing periods of my life. Civil wars are always cruel and this mass retreat of terrified people fleeing in front of the Red tide which rolled inexorably eastward behind them was a quite heart-rending affair. There were only two ways of escaping: by train or by sleigh along the tracks which ran parallel to the two railway lines.

    On the way back, our little party was gradually increased by a number of other Britishers who had been working with different missions or who claimed British citizenship - many of them couldn’t speak a word of English, but they certainly possessed British passports, so we had of course to take them under our wing.

    Unfortunately there were a number of women among them. This was the sort of situation when we cold have gladly done without the female sex because the journey was getting tougher every day. For some six weeks this painful journey continued, sometimes in trains which were strung out nose to tail along the two lines and whose progress got slower and slower every day; sometimes on sleighs pulled by Siberian ponies.

    +++​

    Then on January 7 when we had covered nearly 1,000 miles, we saw appearing from the east - i.e. from the direction in which we were going - soldiers with huge red cockades in their fur caps. The Red Army had carried out an encircling movement; we were cut off and once more I was a prisoner of war, but of the Communists this time.

    Almost instinctively I began to prepare plans to escape. Although possible, it would have certainly been a somewhat precarious journey, travelling by sleigh in midwinter across the frozen Steppe into Northern Manchuria, but perhaps fortunately, it never came off. The two of us who were about to make the journey suddenly realised that the situation was quite different from being a prisoner of war in Germany. Britain as a country was not now at war - our regiments were engaged in peace-time soldiering - it was not our duty to get back and fight because there was no fighting to be done.

    Our duty was obviously to stay and look after the stranded British party for whom we had become responsible. This was particularly so in my case as I was the only officer who could speak Russian and this proved of considerable value during the difficult months which lay ahead.

    Sometimes we were shut up in railway wagons with Red guards patrolling outside, at others we were incarcerated in monasteries which had been turned into civilian prisons. We had no money and very little food so life developed into a battle of wits for survival between ourselves and the Red authorities.

    The only card we could play, and it could hardly be described as a trump card when played in a small town right in the middle of Siberia, was “that we held the Reds personally responsible to the British Government for our safety.”

    This uneven struggle went on with varying success and many unforeseen adventures for nearly 10 months, when suddenly for no apparent reason - things happen like this in Russia - the authorities decided to sent us home via Moscow, Petrograd, and Finland. On October 29, 1920 - 18 months after I had entered the country on the other side at Vladivostok - we crossed the frontier out of the darkness of Bolshevik Russia into the light of the free world again.

    +++​

    It was a great moment. So ended my extremely unorthodox preparation for hight command in the British Army. I was now 26 years old and without any military experience at all. Indeed my only asset seemed to be an intimate knowledge of prison life in both Germany and Russia. The most cautious of bookmakers would unquestionable have laid very long odds against my promotion to the higher ranks of the British Army.

    Yet I wonder whether the varied experiences of those years were not an excellent preparation for the stresses and strains of command in war. I had learned to live rough and depend on nobody but myself and, having experienced the seamy side of life to the full, I was unlikely to be taken by surprise, however unexpected the crisis might be.

    Orthodox military life in those days was not calculated to develop the qualities of robust initiative so necessary in a commander on the battlefield.

    There were many occasions during the last war when my experiences during those early days were to stand me in very good stead, and the one which I shall always remember was during the closing stages of the Battle of Arnhem in September, 1944. It seemed impossible to cross the last obstacle in our path, the Neder Rhine river and reach the gallant British airborne division holding a tight defence perimeter on the north bank. Each attempt ended in failure, while at the same time fresh German forces were pressing in on both sides of our narrow lifeline consisting of one road stretching back some 60 miles to the rear.

    Looking back I am certain that this was the blackest moment of my life. I began to find it difficult to sleep. In fact I had to be very firm with myself in order to banish from my mind, during those midnight hours when everything seems at its worst, the picture of the airborne troops fighting their desperate battle on the other side of the river in front.

    I had had sufficient experience of war to know that any commander who finds it difficult to sleep will soon be unfit to be responsible for other men’s lives. And here I was going that way myself - an unpleasant thought. The strain was almost unbearable, it was now, more than at any other time, that my early training in facing up to critical situations stood me in good stead.
     

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