by Richard Mead
Urquhart duly reported to Boy on his first day in command, only to be given a mild rebuke for being improperly dressed for a general, in his Highland Light Infantry tartan trews. The two men never developed a close relationship, but by most accounts they got on well professionally. There was some feeling in the division that command should have gone to Lathbury, as the most senior brigadier and an experienced airborne soldier, but Urquhart came in due course to earn its respect. On the other hand, whilst some considered that his appointment helped to dispel some of the mumbo-jumbo about airborne operations, others were left with the impression that he considered parachuting and glider operations as just another way to get into battle, according insufficient prominence to some of the unique problems which would be faced as a result. However, he inherited an experienced staff and had many months to familiarize himself with the issues.
In any event, Boy’s immediate concerns were less with 1 Airborne Division than with forming his HQ and establishing the role which the airborne forces would play in the invasion of North-West Europe. The first was relatively straightforward. Walch was promoted and appointed the BGS. The staff of HQ Airborne Forces moved over in toto, whilst others transferred from the newly returned 1 Airborne Division. At the end of December the HQ moved from High House to Ashley Gardens, where it was adjacent to HQ I Corps, under which it had been provisionally decided that 6 Airborne Division would operate in the forthcoming invasion.
There were two men who were on Boy’s personal staff in addition to Johnson and his driver, Johannides.4 Like all of his rank he had an aide-de-camp and for most of 1944 it was Major Harry Cator. In spite of his relatively junior rank Cator was actually only a month younger than Boy, had been at Sandhurst at the same time and had won a Military Cross serving with the Royal Scots Greys in the Great War. After that war he had left the Army and become a farmer, rejoining in 1939. He had had an exciting war, largely in North Africa with the commandos, becoming Commander HQ Raiding Forces. Far from a typical ADC, his age and background made him more of a friend and confidant than a subordinate. Boy’s other key aide was his Personal Assistant, Eddie Newberry. Newberry was a delightful man, but an unlikely soldier. A civil servant in the London County Council prior to joining up, he was highly organized and carried out many of Boy’s more tiresome errands with great devotion to duty.
The second priority, the plan for D-Day, took longer to agree and, when it was first revealed to Gale, he found it most unsatisfactory. Boy travelled down to Syrencote House on 17 February to discuss the proposal, which was for a single parachute brigade and an anti-tank battery to seize the two bridges over the Caen Canal and the River Orne at Benouville and Ranville, coming thereafter under the intermediate command of 3 Division. Gale was deeply disappointed that the whole division was not to be used and Boy sympathized with him. The problem, as ever, was with the RAF, which was initially only prepared to allocate the aircraft of 38 Group to the operation. Further representations were made – Gale wrote later of Boy that it was ‘the effect I knew he would make on our behalf that really formed my only solace’5 – and on 23 February a revised plan was announced, which envisaged the use of 46 Group RAF as well. This would permit the two parachute brigades and a small glider-borne coup de main party to go in on the first lift and take the two bridges already allocated, but also to destroy others over the River Dives to prevent German reinforcements coming forward and to eliminate the Merville Battery, which would dominate some of the landing beaches. Gale would still not get his whole division over in a single lift, but the airlanding brigade would be brought in later on D-Day.
The relatively small amount of time needed to change the plan showed how far relationships with the RAF had changed. There was a new commander of 38 Group, Air Vice-Marshal Leslie Hollinghurst, who would be a key member of the whole airborne team in the future. His group had expanded to ten squadrons, four each equipped with Albemarles and Stirlings, and two with Halifaxes. 46 Group of Transport Command, which had other duties but would be available for specific operations, numbered five squadrons of Dakotas. During the spring these two groups moved to airfields in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Dorset.
At the beginning of February, Boy submitted a paper on the Airborne Base, which would provide the necessary interface between the airborne forces themselves, the RAF and, where necessary, IX US Troop Carrier Command, organizing the reception of troops at the airfields, the army element of air supply, the despatch of the various lifts and any subsequent reinforcements. Members of his staff were attached to the RAF and USAAF formations, whilst others provided airborne control sections at the airfields, near to each of which transit camps were established. The number of staff at HQ Airborne Troops burgeoned and it became necessary in mid-April to relocate from Ashley Gardens to the imposing clubhouse of the Moor Park Golf Club, between Northwood and Rickmansworth. At the same time the name of the organization changed formally to HQ I Airborne Corps.
Amongst all this activity, there was little time for Boy to see his family. Just before he had set out for India, a major event had taken place, when Daphne achieved one of her heart’s desires by taking a lease on Menabilly. She had coveted the house ever since she and her sister Angela had discovered it in 1926, shortly after Gerald had bought Ferryside. It had featured strongly as Manderley in Rebecca and would appear in later books. For years she had been badgering the owner, Dr Rashleigh, and he now agreed to grant a twenty year lease at a peppercorn rent, but with the proviso that it be fully maintained by the tenant. As it was in appalling decorative condition and, among other things, needed a new roof, the total cost was substantial. The house was effectively uninhabitable and Daphne hired workmen to patch it up during the autumn of 1943.
Knowing what he did of the house’s condition, Boy was at first highly dubious. On receiving her letter with the news of the lease, he remarked to Eagger, his ADMS: ‘I think you’d better hurry down to see my wife – she must have gone clean crazy!’6 However, on his return from India, he was impressed by what Daphne had achieved. One whole wing had been shut off, but the rooms which were to be used had all been attractively decorated and the roof appeared to be watertight. The move from Readymoney Cove was achieved just before Christmas 1943 and Boy managed to take a whole week off. The main problem was the lack of heating in what turned out to be a particularly cold winter, as open fires and paraffin stoves were quite inadequate for the large, high-ceilinged rooms; but nothing could detract from Daphne’s evident happiness.
If he could not visit more often, Boy could at least write, indeed he was an assiduous, almost daily, correspondent. For the most part his letters were scribbled in pencil on whatever paper he could find. The language was peculiarly their own, whilst the contents tended to focus on domestic issues and matters of common interest, such as boats. As far as the war was concerned, there were constant expressions of hope that ‘this filthy business’ would soon be over, so that they could settle back to their ‘routes’ and enjoy sailing again.
The topic which received more mention than any other reflected Boy’s desire to own a much larger boat than either ‘Yggy’ or Restless once the war was over. By this time his main form of relaxation, carried out in his room at HQ once the business of the day was over, was the design of such a craft. His ideal was a motor fishing vessel, like those to be seen round the coasts of the UK, which would be called Fanny Rosa, after the feisty heroine of Daphne’s most recent novel, Hungry Hill. He spent many hours sketching out the dimensions and the arrangement of the accommodation and specifying the rig and equipment, including the engines. Although he had pronounced views on what he wanted, Boy realized he needed professional help and enlisted the services of a Scottish naval architect called McBryde. The latter’s role was to translate Boy’s vision into reality, but the chances of achieving anything were scuppered by the lack of building materials, all of which had strategic wartime priority. Letters went to and fro, with Boy becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack o
f progress. There was also the issue of cost and Boy, impecunious himself, began to work on Daphne to bankroll the project.
Back in the real world Boy now had one new formation under command, the Special Air Service Brigade, which had a very different history to the airborne divisions and an even more different ethos. Formed in the Western Desert in late 1941, initially as ‘L Detachment’, under the command of the charismatic David Stirling, it had distinguished itself over the following eighteen months by a series of daring raids behind the Axis lines. Not all of these were successful, but some were spectacularly so. After Stirling’s capture in February 1943, his own 1st SAS Regiment had been broken up into the Special Boat Squadron and the Special Raiding Squadron. In the meantime, Stirling’s brother Bill had raised the 2nd SAS Regiment and both it and the SBS and SRS played a raiding role in Sicily and Italy. At the beginning of January 1944 SRS, now transformed back into 1st SAS Regiment, and 2nd SAS Regiment returned to the UK and were formed into the SAS Brigade with the two French parachute battalions and the Belgian parachute company which had been part of Airborne Forces for some time.
The new brigade was placed under the command of Rory McLeod, who had commanded the 1st Airlanding Light Regiment in 1 Airborne Division. He was an outsider, but he had a very good grasp of the capabilities of his men and the type of warfare to which they were best suited and fought tenaciously to ensure that they were properly employed. He was not so successful in integrating them with the rest of the airborne forces, indeed there was a mutual and lasting jealousy between the two. Whereas the paratroopers and airlanding regiments had been subjected to Boy’s tight discipline and trained to fight with complete obedience as a team, the SAS was altogether more informal, accustomed to operate independently in very small groups with limited interference from above, and it resented any attempt at change. The matter came to a head with Boy’s attempt to impose the maroon beret. The SAS men were intensely proud of their sand coloured berets and, other than on parade in front of senior officers, refused to wear the new issue.
With the French and Belgian parachute units absorbed into the SAS Brigade, the largest independent Allied airborne formation, other than the Americans, was the Polish Parachute Brigade. Relations at the senior end, very cordial back in 1942, were becoming strained. The root of the problem was an undertaking which Brooke had given to General Sikorski that the brigade would remain under Polish command and only be used in Poland. By the autumn of 1943, however, two things were apparent. First, there had been a breach in relations between the Soviet Union and the Polish Government-in-Exile and, with their strength growing after Stalingrad, it seemed unlikely that the Russians would accept any force offered by the London Poles. Secondly, it had become a matter of principle that Allied units from occupied countries would serve under whatever command was appropriate. This was already the case with Anders’ Polish Corps in Italy, whilst it was understood that Maczek’s Polish Armoured Division would come under British (later Canadian) command in North-West Europe. The position of the Polish Parachute Brigade was thus an anomaly, and an increasingly unattractive one to the British, who did not themselves have an abundance of human resources.
The death of Sikorski in a flying accident in July 1943 did not help, as his successors failed to command the same level of respect. The British began to apply pressure to the Poles to release their parachute brigade for use other than in Poland itself, primarily through Lieutenant General Edward Grasett, who had responsibility at the War Office for liaison with Allied Forces. Boy was also prominent in this initiative, creating probably justified suspicion in the mind of Sosabowski that he was angling for control of the Poles. According to Sosabowski, Boy at one point offered him the command of a joint British-Polish airborne division which, with the shortage of local volunteers at the time, would have made some sense, although Sosabowski felt that it was purely politically motivated. Boy made a direct appeal to Sikorski and his successors to release the brigade on more than one occasion, as did Brooke and in due course, Montgomery, but they were rebuffed each time.
Under further pressure, in March 1944 the Polish Government-in-Exile offered the brigade to 21st Army Group for a single operation, on the condition that it would be withdrawn after it had suffered 15 per cent casualties, but Montgomery was unsurprisingly not prepared to accept any formation with strings attached. Immediately after D-Day the Poles capitulated and agreed to let Montgomery have the brigade without restrictions, but by then some damage had been done to relationships, particularly in the British attitude to Sosabowski, who was thought to have been behind the stand on independence. In the meantime the Polish Parachute Brigade had been accorded a low priority in terms of equipment and training and was far from battle ready.
For Boy, relationships with allies were to get no easier. Having begun on the wrong foot with the Americans in the USA and again, much more significantly, in North Africa, he continued to offend them. In November 1943, Ridgway sent his Assistant Divisional Commander, Colonel Jim Gavin, to London to advise COSSAC, the organization set up to plan for D-Day ahead of the appointment of a Supreme Commander, on the American participation in airborne operations. Before he left, Ridgway warned Gavin about Boy’s ‘machinations and scheming’.7 Gavin met Boy shortly after he arrived, only to be the recipient of a remark by the latter about Ridgway not having parachuted into Sicily, which Gavin considered unkind. Furthermore Major General Ray Barker, COSSAC’s American Deputy Chief of Staff, described Boy to Gavin as ‘an empire builder’.8
It would be easy to dismiss these episodes as merely reflective of a clash of style and culture which was only too evident at all levels between the two western allies or as an over-sensitive reaction by the Americans to what they widely perceived as British arrogance: there would be some truth in both of these, but they are not an excuse. It is likely that Boy intended no offence and was merely expressing his views frankly, as was his practice. Nevertheless, the hostility which his personal attitude quite clearly generated and the impression that he was out for his own advantage were to have uncomfortable consequences for him later in the year.
For the time being, however, Boy had no direct relationship with the Americans and there were none of the arguments about the allocation of aircraft which had dogged ‘Husky’, as it had been agreed that each airborne division on D-Day would use those of its own country’s air force. He was thus able to focus his energy on ensuring that 6 Airborne Division was ready for battle. Although the division would come under the operational command of Lieutenant General John Crocker’s I Corps in Normandy and Gale and his staff were accordingly liaising constantly with the latter’s HQ, for administrative purposes and as far as both transportation and supply was concerned it remained the responsibility of HQ I Airborne Corps. Boy thus had frequent meetings with Gale and Hollinghurst on the one hand, and with 21st Army Group on the other.
His relationship with Montgomery had not been soured by being sidelined over Sicily – Boy was never one to hold grudges – and he became a trusted adviser to the latter. On 8 March Montgomery, wearing the maroon beret which Hopkinson had given him in North Africa, with the badge of the Parachute Regiment alongside his general’s badge, went down to inspect 6 Airborne Division on Salisbury Plain, accompanied by Boy and Crawford. For Boy, this was the culmination of the immense progress made in raising the airborne forces and preparing them for war. Not only were there many men present who had served under him in 1942, including James Hill of 3 Parachute Brigade, ‘Pigmy’ Smallman-Tew of the Divisional Signals and two unit COs, Geoffrey Pine-Coffin of the 7th Parachute Battalion and Alastair Pearson of the 8th Parachute Battalion, but the division, in his words to Gale afterwards ‘showed a standard which I have always hoped airborne forces would attain and maintain; whatever anyone else thought, I, at any rate, was fully satisfied…’9 On 19 May came the icing on the cake, when Boy escorted the King and Queen and Princess Elizabeth on their visit to the division.
The principle role of HQ I Airbor
ne Corps in the run-up to D-Day was to provide the critique for both planning and training which the inexperienced HQ I Corps would lack and, in order to familiarize himself thoroughly with the terrain on which the landings would take place, Boy insisted on flying a reconnaissance mission over Normandy, just as he had done over Sicily. The climax of the training programme came in late April with Exercise ‘Mush’, set and conducted by Boy himself as a full-scale rehearsal for what was in store. With 1 Airborne Division playing the enemy, it tested to the full 6 Airborne Division’s readiness for battle. In Gale’s words, the exercise ‘helped me enormously to clarify my mind on many points, and left us all confident that the plan would work.’10
Boy was on much less firm ground with the SAS Brigade. He had lobbied successfully for the inclusion of this formation in his command, on the grounds that there was no other suitable headquarters, but neither he nor his senior staff had any real concept of what it should do. Although a dedicated section of his HQ was formed to look after it, Boy had little time to spend on the brigade due to his other commitments. When the initial plan for its commitment to operations in Normandy was issued on 29 March, it proposed a blatant misuse of the formation. It envisaged the whole brigade being dropped up to thirty-six hours prior to D-Day, inserting itself between the German infantry divisions near the coast and the armoured divisions, which intelligence had correctly identified as being held back in reserve. It would then establish a blocking line to prevent the German armour moving forward.