Leslie Morshead

Lieutenant General Sir Leslie James Morshead, KCB, KBE, CMG, DSO, ED was an Australian soldier, teacher, businessman, and farmer, whose military career spanned both world wars. During the Second World War, he led the Australian and British troops at the Siege of Tobruk and at the Second Battle of El Alamein, achieving decisive victories over Erwin Rommels Afrika Korps. A strict and demanding officer, his soldiers nicknamed him Ming the Merciless, later simply Ming, after the villain in the Flash Gordon comics.

Morshead was born onSeptember 1889 in Ballarat, Victoria, the sixth of seven children of William Morshead, a gold miner who had emigrated from Cornwall via Canada, and his wife Mary Eliza Morshead, formerly Rennison, the Australianborn daughter of a fellow Cornish immigrant. William died when Morshead was six years old. He was educated at Mount Pleasant High School, where he was appointed a junior teacher in 1906.

Source: Wikipedia