Major General Horatio Pettus Mackintosh Berney-Ficklin, CB, MC (13 June 1892 – 17 February 1961) was a British Army officer who served in both the First and Second World Wars.

Born on 13 June 1892, the son of Philip Berney-Ficklin and Janet Margaret Tennant (Rita) Mackintosh, Horatio was educated at Rugby School and Jesus College, Cambridge.

[5] On 9 July 1917, the same year of his fathers' death, he married Audrey Brenda Knyvet Wilson at St Peter Mancroft, Norwich.

[11] Between 1920 and 1925 he transferred to the TF (later renamed the Territorial Army) as a temporary captain and was adjutant of the Bristol University Officer Training Corps (OTC).

[14] He joined the Army Reserve of Officers and in January 1929 was promoted to lieutenant colonel and assumed command of the 5th Battalion, Norfolk Regiment, a TA unit.

[24] In June 1939 Berney-Ficklin handed over command of the battalion to Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Campbell Fletcher and returned to England where, on 1 July, he received a promotion to the temporary rank of brigadier (with seniority backdated two years) and the permanent rank of colonel on the same date[25][18] and was given command of the 15th Infantry Brigade, in succession to Brigadier Henry Willcox.

[26] Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War in September, the brigade was sent to France, arriving there in early October as an independent formation, where it became part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and served initially under the direct command of BEF General Headquarters (GHQ) and later Lieutenant General Sir John Dill's I Corps, as the 5th Division was, at this stage, still not fully formed.

[26] He preceded his brigade, which had returned briefly to Scotland, as he had been selected to command the British forces intended to take Trondheim as part of Operation Hammer.

[27] The division spent most of the rest of 1940 reforming, reequipping and retraining, absorbing large numbers of reinforcements, mostly recently called-up conscripts, to replace the heavy losses suffered in Norway and France.

The division was serving under III Corps, then commanded by Lieutenant General James Marshall-Cornwall until he was replaced by Desmond Anderson the following month, and trained throughout the winter in numerous exercises.

[27] The division, stopping briefly in South Africa, then crossed the Indian Ocean, where it lost both the 13th and 17th Brigades to Operation Ironclad, the invasion of Madagascar.

[27] In early October the division concentrated in Kermanshah before moving to Qum for the winter, where training continued, although it was made difficult by the severe weather.

Before the campaign was over, however, on 3 August Berney-Ficklin was relieved of his command and replaced as GOC by Major General Gerard Bucknall, a protégé of Montgomery's who was two years younger, and returned to England.

[36] In early September, however, shortly after returning to England, Berney-Ficklin became GOC of the 48th Infantry (Reserve) Division,[18] succeeding Major General Hayman Hayman-Joyce.