William Gott

Lieutenant-General William Henry Ewart Gott,, nicknamed "Strafer", was a senior British Army officer who fought during both the First and the Second World Wars, reaching the rank of lieutenant-general while serving with the British Eighth Army in the Western Desert and North Africa from 1940 to 1942. In August 1942, he was appointed as successor to General Claude Auchinleck as commander of the Eighth Army, but on the way to take up his command, his plane was shot down and he was killed. His death led to the appointment of Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery in his place.