Sir Brian Horrocks, 89; World War II Hero, Top TV Personality

Sir Brian Horrocks, hero of El Alamein and the “soldiers’ general” who led the Allied dash through Belgium from an ambulance because of wounds he had suffered, has died at age 89.

Horrocks died Sunday night at a nursing home in this village near England’s south coast, a family spokesman said. He had been ill for a year.

One of the best loved of Britain’s wartime commanders, Horrocks went on to become a prominent television personality, recounting the battles and interviewing the heroes of World War II.

For more than a decade he had held the important ceremonial title of Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod in the House of Lords.

A tall, imposing figure with an air of command and an aversion to pomp, Horrocks served in France, Belgium and Russia during World War I, was wounded and received the Military Cross for bravery. He spent much of that war as a prisoner.

Upon the outbreak of World War II, he was made a commander of a battalion, then a brigade, before the British evacuation of Dunkirk.

In 1942, with no previous desert experience, he was summoned by Gen. Bernard Montgomery, commander of the British 8th Army in Egypt, to take charge of the 13th Corps of Britain’s 8th Army, which then held the southern end of the El Alamein line against Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps.

Within a few days of Horrocks’ arrival, the Germans began their final assault on Egypt. It was repulsed, largely by Horrocks’ men. The battle of El Alamein followed and the Middle East was secured for the Allies.

Montgomery got most of the credit for the victory. But military historian Philip Warner, who published Horrocks’ biography last year, said: “I think Monty owed Horrocks more than Horrocks owed Monty.”

Horrocks was transferred to the 10th Corps and was with the 1st Army when it liberated Tunis in 1943. But he was gravely wounded in a German air raid while rehearsing for the Salerno, Italy, landing.

Though still in great pain, he took part in the D-Day landings at Normandy, leading the 30th Corps in the quick capture of Brussels and Antwerp. He was moved about by ambulance, barking orders from its back door.

His corps suffered a severe setback in the battle of Arnhem in the Netherlands in September, 1944. Horrocks said the annihilation of the small Allied force that gained the northern end of Arnhem bridge was “the blackest moment of my life.” That defeat was recounted in the book “A Bridge Too Far” by Cornelius Ryan, which was made into a movie.

King George VI made Horrocks a Knight Commander of the British Empire in 1949, and Horrocks was named Black Rod the same year, a post of honor that gave him a central role in the opening of Parliament each session.

Later, Horrocks gained new fame with the British Broadcasting Corp. series “Men in Battle.”

Despite his easy manner, he once confessed: “Nothing in my life terrified me as much as a television camera. I go through agonies every time I face one.”