Best remembered for his leadership during such World War II military initiatives as Operation Compass and Operation Market Garden, he received the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, the Croix de Guerre, and numerous other honors for his Service in the British Army.
He received the Military Cross for his Service as a captain in World War I.
He appeared in a popular English documentary series titled The World at War.
He was born in what was then British India to a colonial governor's daughter and an Irish soldier. Several years after the 1959 death of his wife Jean, O'Connor married Dorothy Russell.
After he successfully commanded Allied troops during a North African initiative called Operation Compass, he was captured by German forces led by Erwin Rommel and was forced to spend two years as a prisoner of war.
