Richard McCreery

General Sir Richard Loudon McCreery, (1 February 1898 – 18 October 1967) was a career soldier of the British Army, who was decorated for leading one of the last cavalry actions in the First World War. During the Second World War, he was chief of staff to General Sir Harold Alexander at the time of the Second Battle of El Alamein, and later commanded the British Eighth Army, fighting in the Italian campaign from October 1944 until the end of the war, leading it to victory in the final offensive in Italy.

Background, early life and First World War Richard Loudon McCreery was born on 1 February 1898, the eldest son of Walter Adolph McCreery of Bilton Park, Rugby, a Swiss-born American who spent most of his life in England but who represented the United States at polo at the 1900 Summer Olympics. His mother was Emilia McAdam, a great-great granddaughter of the Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam, famous for his invention of the process of "Macadamization", a method of road surfacing, and great granddaughter of James Nicoll McAdam, known to his contemporaries as "The Colossus of Roads". Emilia's father had been a major in the 7th Dragoon Guards.

In the words of his biographer, Richard Mead:

Between the wars McCreery was appointed adjutant of his regiment in December 1921. He attended the Staff College, Camberley, from 1928 to 1929. His fellow students in the Junior Division there included Gerard Bucknall, Gerald Templer, Alexander Cameron, Alexander Galloway, I. S. O. Playfair, John Harding, Philip Gregson-Ellis and Gordon MacMillan, whilst the instructors included Richard O'Connor, Bernard Paget, Henry Pownall, Harold Franklyn and Bernard Montgomery.

He was then appointed brigade major of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade in 1930 and Commanding Officer of his regiment in 1935.

The inter-war years saw McCreery's greatest sporting achievements (see Equestrianism below). His outstanding 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 wounding in the First World War, which left him with a pronounced limp for the rest of his life.

In 1928 McCreery married Lettice St. Maur, daughter of Major Lord Percy St. Maur (younger brother of the 15th Duke of Somerset) and the Hon. Violet White.

The interwar years were not without tragedy for McCreery. In 1921 one of his younger brothers, Bob, was killed in Ireland by republican forces. He was serving in the British Army, but off-duty at the time. McCreery's youngest brother, Jack, who was a playwright with a play running in the West End, took his own life.

Second World War Brigadier Richard McCreery (centre, with no headgear), commanding the 2nd Armoured Brigade, consulting a map with members of his staff in an orchard near Abbeville, France, June 1940.

In May–June 1940, several months after the Second World War began, McCreery was involved in the Battle of France, which was training to take part in the Italian campaign. X Corps, now under command of the US Fifth Army under Mark W. Clark, played a key role at the bitterly contested Salerno landings, in September 1943, then fought its way, reaching the River Garigliano at the end of 1943 to be halted in front of the Winter Line and were involved in the first Battle of Monte Cassino in January 1944 and later the capture of Rome on 4 June 1944. In September 1943, McCreery was responsible for dealing with the Salerno mutiny.

McCreery was knighted in the field in July 1944 by King George VI, at Palazzo del Pero, near Arezzo, Italy.

McCreery as the Eighth Army commander at TAC Eighth Army HQ, Italy, 1 October 1944.

McCreery took over command of the Eighth Army from Lieutenant General Oliver Leese on 1 October 1944.

Post-war years Lieutenant-General Sir Richard McCreery, Commander-in-Chief, British Forces in Austria, visits Kellerberg Camp for displaced persons, 29 March 1946.

After the war McCreery was General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, British Forces of Occupation in Austria and British representative on the Allied Commission for Austria. McCreery retired from the Army on 9 December 1949.

He lived the rest of his life at Stowell Hill in Somerset, a house built by his mother and designed by a pupil of the architect Edwin Lutyens. Next to riding McCreery's great passion was gardening, and he continued to develop the garden originally laid out by his mother, Emilia McAdam.

After his retirement from the Army in 1949, General McCreery did not play an active part in public life; however, at the time of the Suez Crisis in 1956 he was moved to write a personal letter of protest to his war-time acquaintance Harold Macmillan, then a member of Sir Anthony Eden's cabinet, as he regarded the operation as dishonourable. General Sir Richard McCreery died on 18 October 1967 aged 69. His memorial service was held in Westminster Abbey.

Equestrianism Appropriately for a man who was associated all his adult life with a cavalry regiment, McCreery was a highly accomplished horseman. He twice won the Grand Military Gold Cup at Sandown Park Racecourse (in 1923 and 1928), and represented the Army at polo. In 1924 he and his younger brother Captain Selby McCreery constituted 50 percent of the Army polo team that played against the United States. In retirement during the 1950s, Dick McCreery took up polo again for a time, playing at Windsor Great Park.

He hunted all his life with the Blackmore Vale Hunt, of which he became joint Master of Foxhounds.

At the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 the State Coach was drawn by six grey horses, one of which was named McCreery, the others being named after five other Second World War generals, a distinction which must have been particularly appreciated by McCreery in view of his lifelong association with horses.

McCreery's steeplechasing accomplishments are commemorated in an annual race at Sandown Park, The Dick McCreery Hunters' Steeple Chase, run on the day of the Grand Military Gold Cup.

Character and ability In his character General McCreery was modest to the point of shyness. He was not comfortable in public speaking, but as Doherty puts it: 'Not a self-publicist in the manner of Montgomery, McCreery managed nonetheless to gain the confidence of his soldiers who trusted him in peace and war'. An over-riding sense of duty might be said to have characterised his life and career. McCreery was clearly possessed of a high intelligence, which was not restricted in its operation by the early end of his formal academic education. Harold Macmillan, later to become Prime Minister, characterised McCreery as a 'very clever' man in his wartime diaries. Following a meeting at Eighth Army Headquarters in Forli, Northern Italy, in April 1945, he wrote: ‘He [McCreery] has always struck me as one of the ablest of the military officers whom I have seen out here'. McCreery regarded Montgomery as excessively cautious and indeed historians like Corelli Barnett have suggested that Montgomery failed to press home his advantage after the Battle of Alamein to the extent that he might have done.

Descendants McCreery and his wife, Lettice St. Maur, had four sons and one daughter. Their eldest son, Michael, was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain in the early 1960s but left in 1963 to become leader of the Committee to Defeat Revisionism, for Communist Unity. The youngest son is the psychologist and author Charles McCreery.

Honours and decorations