General Sir John Tredinnick Crocker, (4 January 1896 – 9 March 1963) was a senior British Army officer who fought in both world wars. He served as both a private soldier and a junior officer in the First World War, and as a distinguished brigade, division and corps commander during the Second World War, where his most notable role was as General Officer Commanding (GOC) of I Corps during the D-Day landings on 6 June 1944, leading the corps throughout the subsequent campaign in Western Europe until Victory in Europe Day (VE-Day) just over eleven months later. After the war was over Crocker became Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of Middle East Land Forces and Adjutant-General to the Forces, the second most senior officer on the Army Council. An outstanding soldier, Crocker was highly regarded by both his superiors, most notably Field Marshal The Viscount Alanbrooke, and his subordinates, including the future Field Marshal Lord Carver, but he remains relatively unknown. Early life As related in Delaney's book "Corps Commanders": Great War Over a year after the outbreak of the First World War, which began in August 1914, Crocker enlisted into the British Army as a private soldier in the Artists Rifles, a training corps for potential officers, in November 1915. He was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant into the Machine Gun Corps (MGC) on 26 January 1917. He had a distinguished career in the war and in April and July 1918 was awarded, respectively, the Military Cross (MC) and Distinguished Service Order (DSO). After training at the Machine Gun School at Grantham, Lincolnshire, Crocker joined the 174th Machine Gun Company, part of the 59th (2nd North Midland) Division, a Territorial Force (TF) formation then serving in the trenches of the Western Front as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). He fought with his company, which in early March 1918 became part of the 59th Machine Gun Battalion, in the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres) in mid-1917 and in the German Army's Spring Offensives of 1918. He was promoted to temporary rank of lieutenant on 26 July 1918. The citation for his MC award, published in the official London Gazette reads: The citation for the DSO reads: He continued to serve on the Western Front, fighting in the Hundred Days Offensive, until the war came to an end on 11 November 1918 with the signing