Gerard Bucknall
British Army general (1894–1980)
Lieutenant-General Gerard Corfield Bucknall, (14 September 1894 – 7 December 1980) was a senior British Army officer who served in both the First and Second World Wars. He is most notable for being the commander of XXX Corps during the Normandy landings and the subsequent Battle of Normandy which followed in the summer of 1944.
Early life and First World War
Gerard Bucknall was born on 14 September 1894 in Rock Ferry, Cheshire, England, the son of Harry Corfield Bucknall and Alice Frederica, daughter of Thomas William Oakshott, JP, of Derby House, Rock Ferry. He was educated at Repton School and West Downs School. Entering the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1913, Bucknall was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Middlesex Regiment on 25 February 1914.
During the First World War Bucknall, promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant on 5 October 1914 (made permanent on 11 December 1914), served with the 1st Battalion, Middlesex in France and Belgium with some distinction, in particular during the Battle of the Somme on 25 August 1916 where he took command of the battalion and was awarded the Military Cross (MC). The citation for the MC reads:
For conspicuous gallantry in action. When his senior officers had become casualties, he went up and down the line cheering and reorganising his men in face of very heavy fire.
From 6 June 1917 he served as a brigade major with the 114th Infantry Brigade, part of the 38th (Welsh) Division, until war's end, and in 1918 he was awarded a Bar to his MC and mentioned in despatches.
Between the wars
During the interwar period Bucknall served initially with his old battalion in Germany, the Egyptian Army (Egypt was then de facto part of the British Empire).
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