Military General, Wartime Commander. He was was key figure in the development of armoured warfare, a brilliant tactician and among the most important British fighting generals of World War Two. He was commissioned into the 12th Royal Lancers in 1915 and served on The Western Front during the First World War, surviving being shot in the thigh (which was to give him a lifelong limp) and was awarded the Military Cross for a daring mounted attack on German positions, capturing ten prisoners and a machine gun in the progress. Between the wars he was appointed Regimental Adjutant then Brigade Major of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade in 1930. His skill as a horseman was achieved despite the loss of several toes and a hole in the riding muscle of his right leg, as a result of his wartime wounds. In 1938 he joined the staff of 1st Division under General Alexander before being given command of 2nd Armoured Brigade. It was under his command, along with General deGaulle that the Allies won the Battle of France and in December 1940 he was appointed General Officer Commanding of the newly created 8th Armoured Division, and is credited by many for the solution to the victory at El Alamein. McCreery was awarded the DSO, and knighted in the field in July 1944 by King George VI, at Palazzo del Pero, Italy. He was promoted to command X Corps at Salerno which he commanded during the advance to the Gothic Line. He relieved Leese as Commander 8th Army in September 1944 and it was his brilliant plan that seized the Argenta Gap and drove the Germans back across the River Po into Austria. He became British High Commissioner in Austria, C in C British Army of the Rhine and British Military Representative at the UN, before being made a full General in 1949. In 1951 he was given the Colonelcy of the 12th Royal Lancers, transferring after their merger in 1960 to the 9th/12th Royal Lancers, a post he held until 1961. In retirement, he remained a keen horse-rider and gardener but sought no publicity for his wartime exploits and is remembered for his humility, sense of duty and high intelligence.