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. McCreery was educated at Bilton Grange, St Michael's Preparatory School, Westgate-on-Sea and Eton College. Six months after the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, McCreery sat the entrance examination for the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, only days after his seventeenth birthday, the minimum age, and finished 12th of 212 entrants. On 11 August 1915, McCreery was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the 12th (The Prince of Wales's Royal) Lancers, but instead of joining his regiment in France, was posted to the 6th Reserve Regiment of Cavalry based in Dublin for further training in cavalry tactics. Arriving in France on the Western Front in January 1916, McCreery found that his regiment, serving as part of the 5th Cavalry Brigade, had recently begun to operate in the infantry role in the trenches, although retaining the capability of reverting to cavalry should the need arise.