Indian Army during World War II Cunningham. Over time, the Eighth Army would be commanded by Generals Neil Ritchie, Claude Auchinleck and Bernard Montgomery. In the early years of the war, the Eighth Army suffered from poor leadership and repeated reversals of fortune until the Second Battle of El Alamein when it advanced across Libya into Tunisia. The Ninth Army was formed on 1 November 1941 with the re designation of the Headquarters of the British Troops in Mandate Palestine and Transjordan. It controlled British and Commonwealth land forces stationed in the eastern Mediterranean. Its commanders were General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson and Lieutenant-General Sir William
John Nichols (British Army officer) John Nichols (British Army officer) Brigadier John Sebastian Nichols, (5 July 1896 – 7 February 1954) was a British Army officer who fought during both the First World War and the Second World War. During the latter his most notable role was when he commanded the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division during the Second Battle of El Alamein and in the Tunisian Campaign from 1942 to 1943. Nichols was born on 5 July 1896 in the town of Markington, Harrogate, North Yorkshire. His father was the Reverend Sebastian Elijah Nichols, an Anglican clergyman, and his mother was Caroline Isabel Mare. Nichols