Lives of the First World War

Gerard Corfield Bucknall CB, MC, DL (14 September 1894 – 7 December 1980) was a senior British Army officer who served in both World War I and World War II, where he commanded the 5th Infantry Division and later XXX Corps during the Battle of Normandy in mid-1944. During World War I Bucknall, promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant on 5 October 1914 (made permanent on 11 December 1914),[6] served with the 1st Battalion, Middlesex in France and Belgium with some distinction, in particular during the Battle of the Somme on 25 August 1916 where he took command of the battalion and was awarded the Military Cross (MC).[7] From 16 June 1917 he served as a brigade major with the 114th Brigade, part of the 38th (Welsh) Division, until war's end, and in 1918 he was awarded a Bar to his MC and mentioned in dispatches.