A Full Life
By Sir Brian Horrocks
The fascinating autobiography of a likeable, eccentric and highly respected military leader.
Lieutenant General Sir Brian Horrocks, KCB, KBE, DSO, MC (1895–1985) was a highly respected commander in the British Army, perhaps best known for commanding XXX Corps in Operation Market Garden and several other World War II campaigns. After the war, he was also a television presenter, author and – for 14 years – Black Rod in the House of Lords. Despite these impeccable establishment credentials, however, he was anything but conventional.
Horrocks graduated from Sandhurst, but his early career was notably mediocre. Nonetheless, he was commissioned into the Middlesex Regiment in 1914, as World War I began. In October that year he was badly injured at the Battle of Armentières and taken prisoner. Due to Horrocks’s repeated attempts to escape, he was eventually imprisoned with Russian officers, who taught him to speak their language fluently. This came in handy when he was posted to Russia in the early 1920s.
Horrocks’ other inter-war adventures included competing in the 1924 Olympics, but he returned to serious soldiering at the outbreak of World War II and it was there that his leadership talents truly shone, although he was again badly wounded. Horrocks was a popular and widely admired by his colleagues of all ranks. In later years he wrote frankly and vividly about his military experiences, and it is this ability – along with his likeable and open personality – that makes A Full Life essential reading for anyone interested in World War II or British military history, and ideal for readers who simply want to understand the nature of great leadership.
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