Vyvyan Pope Lieutenant - General Vyvyan Vavasour Pope DSO MC ( 30 September 1891 – 5 October 1941 ) was a British Army Officer who briefly commanded XXX Corps during World War II . Military career . Early life and First World War . Vyvyan Pope was born on 30 September 1891 in London , the son of James Pope , a civil servant , and his wife Blanche Holmwood ( née Langdale ) Pope . He was educated at Lancing College , and was commissioned into the North Staffordshire Regiment in 1912 , becoming the junior subaltern of the 1st Battalion . He saw service in Ireland , but following the outbreak of World War I the battalion was transferred to England , and embarked for France in September 1914 . Pope remained with the battalion for most of the war , seeing action in the First Battle of Ypres , in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle ( where he won the Military Cross ) , in two serious gas attacks in April and June 1916 ( in the first of which his actions won him the Distinguished Service Order ) , in the Battle of the Somme , and in the Battle of Messines . He also participated in the Christmas truce of 1914 . In June 1917 , now a Captain with the acting rank of Lieutenant - Colonel , he took over command just in time to see the battalion take a prominent role in the Third Battle of Ypres . On 21 March 1918 , the 1st Battalion was in front - line trenches near St . Quentin when the Germans launched Operation Michael , the opening attack in their Spring Offensive : there were extensive casualties , and , in a highly confused and fluid situation , Pope received a bullet wound in the right elbow . By the time he reached a hospital gas gangrene had set in , and his right arm had to be amputated . Every year thereafter he drank a glass of port on 21 March in memory of his fallen comrades . Following his discharge from hospital Pope attempted to find a route back into military service , but before he could do so the Armistice had been signed . Interwar years . Still anxious to pursue a military career , Pope managed to secure a position in 1919 in the North Russia Relief Force , part of the Allied intervention on the side of the White forces in the Russian Civil War . Having reached Arkhangelsk , he took command of a Slavo - British unit largely made up of prisoners freed from Arkhangelsk prison , but the exercise was not a success . On his return to Britain , and following a brief period of service with the North Staffordshire Regiment in Ireland , he transferred in April 1920 to the Royal Tank Corps . He promptly returned to Ireland with an Armoured Car company , and saw action in the Irish War of Independence . In 1922 he took command for a short period of the 3rd Armoured Car Company in Egypt , but then again returned to Britain . He entered the Staff College , Camberley , in 1924 , and in 1926 was appointed Brigade Major to the Royal Tank Corps Centre , Bovington , where he was at the centre of emerging ideas about the use of armour in battle . He held a post as a General Staff Officer at Southern Command from 1928 to 1930 , and at the War Office from 1930 to 1933 . In 1935 , at the time of the Italo - Abyssinian War , he was posted by Brigadier Percy Hobart to Egypt , as Commander of the Royal Tank Corps there , and with a brief to promote the advantages of mechanized forces : the episode taught him valuable lessons about the challenges of operating vehicles in a desert environment . In June 1936 he was posted to the Directorate of Military Training at the War Office under Alan Brooke ; and in 1938 to the General Staff of Southern Command . Second World War . On the outbreak of World War II , Pope was appointed Chief of Staff to II Corps , which had been mobilised at Salisbury under Brooke ' s command . ( Pope designed II Corps ' badge of a salmon leaping over a stylised " brook " , as a play on his commander ' s name . ) At the end of September 1939 the corps crossed to France to join the British Expeditionary Force ( BEF ) . Pope went with them , but returned to England in December to take command of 3rd Armoured Brigade . In April 1940 he was appointed Inspector of the Royal Armoured Corps , but almost immediately received a new posting as Adviser on Armoured Fighting Vehicles on General Gort ' s staff at BEF headquarters in France . He soon contrived to become more closely involved in the fighting , and was a prominent commander in the Allied counter - attack at Arras on 21 May , which , although it did not halt the advancing Germans , shook their confidence . The BEF was now in retreat , however , and at the end of May Pope was evacuated from Dunkirk . He returned to the War Office , where he was appointed Director of Armoured Fighting Vehicles in June 1940 . While in this post he played a key role in initiating production of the A22 tank ( afterwards known as the Churchill tank ) . The North African Campaign was now assuming a growing importance in strategic thinking , and by the summer of 1941 a major offensive in the desert against the Germans named Operation Crusader was being planned . It was to be fought by the Eighth Army , comprising XIII Corps , an infantry corps , and XXX Corps , a predominantly armoured corps . In August 1941 Pope was appointed General Officer Commanding XXX Corps . He flew out to Egypt in September and assembled a staff . However , on 5 October , " en route " to General Cunningham ' s first Eighth Army conference on the forthcoming battle , his Hudson aircraft ran into trouble on taking off from Heliopolis and crashed in the Mocattam Hills . All those on board were killed . Personal life . Pope married Sybil Moore in 1926 .