Lieutenant-General Eric Norman Goddard CB CIE CBE LVO MC and bar (6 July 1897 – 11 June 1992) was a regular soldier of the Indian Army who rose to the position of General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Command, India.

[1][2][3][4] From October 1916 he was attached to the 128th Pioneers, with whom Goddard saw active service in Mesopotamia, Persia and Kurdistan between 1916 and 1919, being twice mentioned in despatches, made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire and receiving the Military Cross.

[7] He passed the Staff College, Quetta, in 1928–29, where his fellow students were John Crocker, Colin Gubbins, Douglas Gracey, Lionel Cox, Harold Lewis and Henry Davies, all future generals.

In 1943–1944 he was major-general in command of administration to the 11th Army Group and to Allied Land Forces in South East Asia, when he was mentioned in despatches a further four times and appointed CIE and CBE.

[1] In that role, he was responsible for the Goddard Plan for Operation Polo, the armed invasion by the Union of India of the princely state of Hyderabad, put into effect in September 1948 by Major-General Joyanto Nath Chaudhuri.