Dan Pienaar Major General Daniel Hermanus ( " Dan " ) Pienaar was a South African World War II military commander . Pienaar joined the artillery branch of the Natal Police ( NP ) in 1911 , and transferred to the Union Defence Forces ( UDF ) when they took over the NP in 1913 . In World War I , he served as an artilleryman with the South African Overseas Expeditionary Force in German East Africa and Palestine . Between the two world wars , Pienaar held various staff and command posts . World War 2 . In 1940 - 1941 , during the East African Campaign , Pienaar commanded the 1st South African Infantry Brigade . He fought in the battles of El Wak , The Juba , Combolcia , and Amba Alagi ) . In 1941 - 1942 , during the North Africa Campaign , Pienaar fought in the battles of Sidi Rezegh and Gazala ) . On 10 March 1942 , he was promoted to GOC 1st South African Infantry Division , which he led in the battle of Gazala , the retreat to Egypt , the defence of El Alamein , and the final battle of El Alamein . He was twice awarded the DSO and mentioned in dispatches twice for his service in North Africa . On 20 November 1942 he was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath ( CB ) " in recognition of the supreme gallantry and magnificent achievements of British and Dominion Troops and their Commanders in the present operations in the Middle East " . During the early stages of the North African campaign , the South African 5 Brigade had been destroyed on 23 November 1941 , at Sidi Rezegh and on 21 June 1942 , the 2 Division , with 4 and 6 Brigadees under command , surrendered at the fall of Tobruk . As a result of these heavy losses Pienaar , now commander of 1 Division was cautious and increasingly reluctant to risk his troops , lost the confidence of his British commanders . It was felt , a little unfairly , that his division now lacked the necessary aggressiveness and drive for offensive operations . However the division played an important part in the victory at El Alamein . On the other hand , Ronald Lewin , who took part in the entire campaign , writes : " what is striking . . . is how often the British would squander a complete armoured brigade in some useless assault on a fixed position . " Pienaar simply did not buy into the " Up Guards and at ' em ! " approach of the British , which led to the decimation of the Commonwealth and Indian divisions that bore the brunt of so much of the fighting in the Desert War . " You know the three things I hate in this world — British lords , British generals and these bloody Guards ! " he told Brigadier E . P . Scrubbs Hartshorn . " The burden of blame " for the loss of Tobruk in 1942 , Churchill wrote in volume 4 of his memoirs , " The Hinge of Fate " , " falls upon the [ British ] High Command rather than on [ the fortress commander South African ] General [ Hendrik ] Klopper and still less on his troops . " Death . In 1942 , Pienaar was killed in an air crash in Kenya on his way back to South Africa . Major General Pienaar was arguably one of South Africa ' s most charismatic and popular military commanders . An infantry regiment , exhibition hall at the South African National Museum of Military History and a suburb of his home town , Bloemfontein , were later named after him . Sam Brewer , war correspondent for the " Chicago Tribune , " wrote in an obituary that Pienaar was " acknowledged by all the military authorities . . . as one of the best fighting leaders the British have found in this war . He was every inch a soldier and a man , and on top of that had a quality not always found in a tough General - - he was loved like a father by his men . . . . More than once he had hard words with higher authorities when he thought insufficient attention was being paid to the safety and comfort of the foot sloggers , who were bearing the brunt of the fight . Two points struck everybody who met Dan Pienaar - - first his disregard for personal danger ; second his solicitude for his men . " Some had thought of Pienaar as a potential successor to Prime Minister Jan Smuts — a victorious Afrikaner general who could have held back the reactionary forces of Afrikaner nationalism , as Smuts had done for almost half a century . Pienaar ' s death was thus a very significant loss to South Africa . Had he lived , the country might perhaps have been spared the long agony of the apartheid years .