COALITIONS, POLITICIANS AND GENERALS: Some Aspects of Command in Two World Wars

Transcription

1 AGAINST ODDS

2 Also by Dominick Graham COALITIONS, POLITICIANS AND GENERALS: Some Aspects of Command in Two World Wars FIRE-POWER: British Army Weapons and Theories of War, (with Shelford Bidwell) THE PRICE OF COMMAND: A Biography of Guy Simonds TUG OF WAR: The Battle for Italy

3 Against Odds Reflections on the Experiences of the British Army, Dominick Graham Emeritus Professor University of New Brunswick Canada

4 First published in Great Britain 1999 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / First published in the United States of America 1999 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y ISBN Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Graham, Dominick. Against odds: reflections on the experiences of the British army, / Dominick Graham. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN (cloth: alk. paper) I. Great Britain. Army-History-World War, Great Britain. Army-History-World War, D546.G '0941-DC21 Dominick Graham 1999 I. Title CIP All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources

5 I dedicate this book to my friend and colleague Shelford (Ginger) Bidwell who died in Much of the material for it was researched while we were preparing Firepower: British Army Weapons and Theories of War, , Tug of War: The Battle for Italy, and Coalitions, Politicians and Generals: Some Aspects of Command in Two World Wars. v

6 Contents List of Illustrations List of Maps Preface Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations and Technical Words Introduction Prologue PART I The Army Prepares 2 Learning the Ropes 3 Politicians, Commanders and Battles 4 Necessity Knows No Law 5 Conclusion to Part I PART II THE MEDITERRANEAN, The Desert Campaign 7 The Armour Problem 8 The Gazala Battle 9 Fighting PART III NORTH-WEST EUROPE 10 The Second Army in Normandy 11 The Conduct of the Normandy Campaign 12 Fighting Experiences: Tilly-sur Seulles, Villers Bocage and Operation Goodwood 13 Battles on the Falaise Road 14 Montgomery's Reputation 15 The End or Another Beginning? 16 Montgomery versus the Americans Reflections Notes Select Bibliography Index vii Vlll ix x xii xiii

7 List of Illustrations 1. Field Marshal Montgomery (then Lieutenant-Colonel Montgomery and Commander of the 17th Battalion of Royal Fusiliers), Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig with the Army Commanders, Generals Plumer (2nd), Byng (3rd), Birdwood (5th), Rawlinson (4th) and Horne (1st). Behind them are Generals Sir John Davidson, AA Montgomery Massingberd, Sir Louis Vaughan and others. Cambrai, November Kitchener of Khartoum - propaganda poster. 4. British artillery seen firing into the enemy's positions, December A Tank Regiment trooper who took part in the Battle of the Western Desert, December A British artillery officer examining the German helmet which he found after the battle near EI Gubi, December Lieutenant General Willoughby Norrie sending a message over the radio to his forward Commanders, 29 December Major General W.H.E. Gott, Commander 7th Armoured Division, being driven round Benghazi by Brigadier Jock Campbell, OC Support Troops, 29 December General Montgomery speaking to Allied correspondents, June A British tank of the 27th Armoured Brigade attempting to seize the vital Orne bridge, June Royal Tiger. 12. British Generals' Conference, 10 June Group photograph after the conference: Lieutenant-General J.T. Crocker, Lieutenant-General M.E. Dempsey and Lieutenant-General G.c. Bucknall. All photographs are reproduced by kind permission of the Imperial War Museum. viii

8 List of Maps 1 The Western Front 22 2 The Somme, rd Ypres 43 4 The Rawlinson-Plumer plan 44 5 The Mediterranean 69 6 The Western Desert: main operational area 86 7 The Battle of Gazala: positions at dawn on 27 May Tobruk Normandy The Falaise Pocket The Goodwood battle The September advance The Arnhem operation Veritable 204 ix

9 Preface Above the stairs leading down to the Monet exhibition in the Musee Marnottan at La Muette, in Paris, is engraved Louis Gillet's comment on Monet's Nympheus hanging in the salon below. Etonnante peinture sans des sin et sans bord... Cantique sans parolles... ou l'art... sans Ie secours des formes. Sans vignette... sans fable... sans allegories... sans corps et sans visage... Par Ie seulle vertu des tons... N'est plus qu'effusion... lyrisme... ou le coeur se raconte... se livre... chante ses emotions. I cannot communicate my personal response to a painting or musical composition beyond a generality widely shared. An attempt to build a bridge of words from the ideal to the real trivialises the former. But painting and music recall glimpses of the drama of battles much more vividly than literature, although poetry narrows the gap. Poetry is music and painting in words. Prose is usually too linear for the complexity of the subject: it is best represented by anthologies which have been compiled without apparent design or limits. Of his anthology, Vain Glory. A Miscellany o/the Great War, , Guy Chapman wrote: 'There is no truth about the War.' Those of us who seek its parts are like painters in oils. We keep adding to our picture in search of the truth; an impression here, a colour there. Looked at closely the details make no sense: at a distance the sense appears as art. In this book I have attempted to combine a factual frame of events with personal retrospect at a distance of half a century. I have tried to paint scenes without a beginning or an end and yet to retain historical truth. An analogy is the making of a multi-media disk. The editor farms out many thousands of topics to his authors. He gives them the sources for short paragraphs on each. Like pre-factory piece-workers, authors are not told how their contributions will be used. They are not responsible for connecting them into thought sequences. The functions of combat soldiers and the authors of disks are similar in that the former contribute paragraphs in battle after battle. Neither knows what he has contributed to the whole picture until the author receives a shiny disk and the soldier reads a regimental history, probably years later. Then he is curious to discover how his own experience corresponds to what he reads. Has the editor's linear text bridged the gap x

10 Preface between thousands of experiences all over a battlefield and higher matters that provide a frame for his narrative? I have attempted to explore the gap, knowing that it can never be closed completely. xi DOMINICK GRAHAM

11 Acknowledgements Much of my material was collected for the three books that Shelford Bidwell and I wrote together. So I must again thank my friends in many places for their help in the past. On this occasion I thank the staff of the Public Record Office for being unfailingly patient, helpful and efficient. The Imperial War Museum's Annex staff produced tapes of interviews and their wonderful collection of photographs. Mr J. Atkinson, the Librarian of Bovington Tank Museum, whose phone is seldom silent, found time between calls not only to show me his collection of interviews with combatants but also to offer me his considerable technical knowledge. Garry Watts and his staff at Teesside University Institute of Design scanned and adjusted the maps. lowe a debt to General Playfair, whose photograph when Chief of Staff in Ceylon I would have included in the illustrations had there been space, for the hours of pleasure his official historians' files on the Mediterranean Theatre of operations gave me at the PRO. My intention to balance historical accuracy and human experiences required readers with experience of war, or at least serious students of the subject, and historical sense as well. My thanks go to Sydney Jary, who was not only encouraging but also corrected my errors. Terrence Coverdale's service with the King's Own Scottish Borderers and with General Montgomery in Northwest Europe overlapped the subject. Rea Leakey provided vivid incidents from his remarkable career, particularly in the Desert, recorded in his own memoir which we discussed under his hospitable roof. Marc Milner, of the University of New Brunswick, read early drafts which he criticised ruthlessly to my advantage. Sebastian Roberts, Irish Guards, at present concerned in army operational research, read and circulated a draft among presentday regular soldiers. Dominick Graham East Rounton North Yorkshire DOMINICK GRAHAM xii

12 List of Abbreviations and Technical Words Arms Used to describe divisions of the army, for instance infantry, artillery etc. CAB Documents from the cabinet series at the Public Record Office, Kew. OAK Deutsches Afrika Korps. OSO Distinguished Service Order. Usually awarded for superior performance in the command of battalion-sized units. In special cases it is awarded for gallantry in action. OCM Distinguished Conduct Medal. Similar award for senior ranks below commissioned officer. GSO General Staff Officer. Describes an officer of the general (G), as opposed to adjutant (A) or quartermaster general branches of the staff. HE High explosive. Filling of various kinds for shells designed to disintegrate the shell casing into many small fragments. Fuses of various degrees of sensitivity determine the nature of the shell-burst. IWM Documents, tapes and photographs from the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth. MC Military Cross. Awarded to officers for gallantry. MM Military medal. Similar award for privates, ncos and warrant officers. NCO Non-commissioned officer. Various ranks from lance corporal and below warrant officer. Divided into junior neas and sergeants and above who are senior ncos. xiii

13 xiv List of Abbreviations and Technical Words 08 Books of the official series of war histories published by HM Stationary Office RA Royal Artillery. Private soldiers are called gunners, corporal ranks are bombardiers. Gunner is used to describe someone representing the artillery Arm. RE Royal Engineers. In the Army called Sappers. Responsible for a wide variety of tasks at all levels. Sigint Signal intelligence at various levels from high grade Enigma intercepts to Army field intercepts by the Y service. WO Documents from the War Office series at the PRO.