Bernard Montgomery

Bernard Montgomery took a sniper's bullet through the lung at Ypres in 1914, survived, and spent the rest of the First World War climbing the staff ranks through Arras and Passchendaele. Between the wars he moved through battalion and brigade commands until August 1942, when he took over the Eighth Army in the Western Desert. He led it through Sicily and Italy, then commanded all Allied ground forces for the first three months after the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944. His 21st Army Group fought through the rest of the North West Europe campaign - Operation Market Garden failed to cross the Rhine, but Operation Plunder succeeded in March 1945. On 4 May 1945, at Lüneburg Heath south of Hamburg, Montgomery accepted the surrender of German forces in north-western Europe. He finished as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, then spent a decade in the new NATO command structure before retiring in 1958.