page_title: Richard O'Connor
section_title: Operation Market Garden, India and afterwards
hierarchical_section_title: Richard O'Connor / Second World War / Operation Market Garden, India and afterwards
context_page_description: General Sir Richard Nugent O'Connor, KT, GCB, DSO & Bar, MC 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.
context_section_description: O'Connor remained in command of VIII Corps, for the time being, and was given the task of supporting Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks' XXX Corps in Operation Market Garden, the plan by Montgomery to establish a bridgehead across the Rhine in the Netherlands. Following their entry into Weert at the end of September, VIII Corps prepared for and took part in Operation Aintree, the advance towards Venray and Venlo beginning on 12 October.
  However, on 27 November O'Connor was removed from his post and was ordered to take over from Lieutenant-General Sir Mosley Mayne as GOC-in-C, Eastern Command, India. Smart's account says that Montgomery prompted the move for "not being ruthless enough with his American subordinates" although Mead states that the initiative was taken by Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, but Montgomery made no attempt to retain O'Connor. He was succeeded as GOC VIII Corps by Major-General Evelyn Barker, formerly the GOC of the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division, and one of O'Connor's students at the Staff College, Camberley in the late 1920s. This marked the end of a long and distinguished combat career, although the new job was an important one, controlling the lines of communication of the Fourteenth Army. O'Connor was Mentioned in Despatches for the thirteenth and final time of his career on 22 March 1945.
  Having been promoted to full general in April 1945, O'Connor was appointed GOC-in-C North Western Army in India in October that year (the formation was renamed Northern Command in November of that year). From 1946 to 1947 he was Adjutant-General to the Forces and aide-de-camp general to the King. 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. Montgomery, then Chief of the Imperial General Staff, maintained that he had been sacked, rather than resigned, for being "not up to the job". Not long after this he was installed as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.
caption: Operation Market Garden
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