Commando General

by Richard B Mead

  Keyes and Haydon set up their own HQ at Lamlash Bay, whereupon the rehearsals began in earnest for WORKSHOP. On the back of Tom Churchill’s advice, Bob had selected for his battalion the beaches on Arran which bore the closest topographical resemblance to those on Pantelleria. Most of the rehearsals went very well, but there was one exception and it was highly unfortunate that, in this case, Keyes had invited some members of the Board of Admiralty to be present as observers. The landing, by 3 Commando from HMS Glenroy, was due to take place at first light, and Durnford-Slater gave instructions for the men to be called in plenty of time to assemble and board the LCAs. However, the officer charged with this duty delegated it to another, who for some reason then failed to take the required action. Three quarters of an hour after the designated time, Durnford-Slater himself woke up, realized to his horror what had happened and roused as many men as he could. This result was a fiasco as the LCAs arrived late and with far less than their full complement of men. Keyes was predictably furious, although when Durnford-Slater came to apologize, he told him that he should have learnt a lesson which would not now be repeated in a real operation.

  For his part, Bob was convinced that the Officer of the Watch on Glenroy had realized that the reveille had not been sounded at the right time but had been content to sit back and watch the Army making a fool of itself. This was symptomatic of the relationship between the two services, which was not good, at least aboard the LSIs. Part of the problem was that the boat handling and navigation skills of the mostly RNVR crews of the LCAs was particularly poor, arousing a lot of criticism from those in the Commandos, like Bob, who were experienced sailors. Bob believed strongly that the Royal Navy should only have responsibility up until the ‘Lowering Position’ had been reached, when the LSI stopped to allow the LCAs to be launched. Thereafter, the Commandos should be responsible for the run-in to the beach. This was never to happen and, although boat handling improved greatly over the next few years, in the immediate future the landing craft as often as not either ran aground on some obstruction or landed on the wrong beaches.

  A greater immediate problem was the atmosphere on board the LSIs. Each of them was captained by a retired officer returned to service, including Captain Sir James Paget of the Glenroy, described by Waugh as ‘a man of irritable disposition and poor judgement’.18 The two sets of officers never hit it off. Waugh encapsulated this neatly: ‘No 8 Commando was boisterous, xenophobic, extravagant, witty, with a proportion of noblemen which the navy found disconcerting; while the navy was jejune, dull, poor, self-conscious, sensitive of fancied insults, with the underdog’s aptitude to harbour grievances.’19 This was highly unfortunate as they were before long to be thrown together for a long voyage, although it would not be to Pantelleria.

  In early January 1941, WORKSHOP was cancelled, to the bitter disappointment of Bob and his men. Bob wrote later:

  Despondency was the order of the day. The confidence of the junior officers and their men in the leaders … was shaken and they began to wonder whether their chances of action would have been better if they had stayed with their Regiments, many of which had been sent to the Middle East, where the battle was in full swing.20

  Keyes spoke to all the men, but it was Haydon who came up with a more practical response, which was to send everyone who had trained for WORKSHOP on a fortnight’s leave. Just before they left, the welcome news was received that the Special Service Battalions were to be scrapped and the Commandos restored. In Haydon’s words:

  There is no doubt that the Commandos, each raised by an individual officer and each filled with his individual enthusiasm, had a most marked spirit and pride of their own.

  This characteristic was to some extent drowned out and lost when the Commandos were amalgamated into Special Service Battalions. It was, however, my hope that it would be replaced by an equally beneficial battalion spirit. I do not think that I can say that this proved to be the case.21

  At the same time, Keyes announced that, on their return from leave, three of the Commandos, including No 8, were to be sent overseas, where an operation of some importance awaited them.

  Bob was about to go on leave himself when a telegram arrived from Angie to say that she had just arrived back from Canada via Lisbon and was on her way to Arran. The two of them stayed for a few days on the island, now devoid of Commandos, before spending the rest of his leave in London.

  Chapter 9

  Layforce

  It had been decided that an overall commander would be appointed to Force Z, the umbrella formation for the three Commandos being sent overseas, Nos. 7, 8 and 11. Bob surmised correctly that the choice would lie between him and Dudley Lister and, immediately after the announcement, had sought an interview with Haydon, who told him that he had guessed what Bob was coming about and that he was not to worry about it. Haydon had gone on to suggest that he should leave by the tradesman’s entrance as he could see Lister coming up the path!

  Bob arrived back from his leave on 25 January 1941 in order to begin supervising the arrangements for the embarkation of the three Commandos. Walter Curtis had elected to return to his regiment but provided invaluable assistance, and Dermot Daly stepped up to lead 8 Commando, which had undergone one significant change. No. 8 Troop had been disbanded, Godfrey Nicholson calling a parade to tell his men that they had not come up to the standard required in training. According to James Sherwood, one of their NCOs, this provoked an extremely angry reaction, but the decision was irrevocable. For most it meant being RTU’d, but Sherwood himself heard that Courtney was recruiting for the Folbot Section, which in future was to operate separately from 8 Commando; he applied for a transfer and was accepted.1 A few others, notably Randolph Churchill, were transferred to other troops. In order to make up the numbers, A Troop from 3 Commando, under Captain Mike Kealy, was transferred to become the new No. 8 Troop.

  Of the two other Commandos, No. 7 was the better known to Bob. Raised by Lister from Eastern Command, it had been stationed in Felixstowe, where it was a near neighbour of No. 8 at Burnham. It had been decided that Lister was to remain in the UK to lead 4 Commando, and the command passed to Major F. B. Colvin. Bob was not familiar with 11 Commando, in which the only officer he knew at all well was Keyes’s son Geoffrey, the second-in-command. The Commando had recruited almost exclusively from Scottish regiments and was not only informally styled ‘the Scottish Commando’ but emphasized its national affiliation in every way it could, notably by requiring all its officers and men to wear Balmoral bonnets, with black hackles rather than regimental badges. The commanding officer was Major R. R. N. Pedder.

  The Eastern Mediterranean.

  All three Glen ships were sailing to the Middle East, but Glenearn was required to carry other troops, including the personnel of a Mobile Naval Base Defence Organization (MNBDO), leaving the three Commandos to be crammed into the remaining two ships, Glengyle and Glenroy. It was decided that 7 Commando would go in the former and 8 Commando and the Force HQ in the latter, with 11 Commando split between them. Pedder immediately got into a row with Curtis, accusing him of favouring his own men in allocating accommodation; but in fact neither officers nor men were happy with what was provided, and Curtis was only able to make the best job of it that he could.

  The lack of space was the main reason why Bob’s HQ was pared down to the bone. In his orders to Bob on 31 January Haydon wrote:

  Within the limits of the numbers travelling on H.M.S. ‘Glengyle’ and H.M.S ‘Glenroy’ it has not been possible to include a Battalion Headquarters without unduly curtailing the fighting portion of the force. Thus you must select a small operational staff including communications personnel and train them during your voyage.2

  Haydon’s Brigade Major put it more succinctly:

  You appear to be going to command a force of over 100 officers and 1,500 O.R.s with one staff officer (Lt. Campbell I.O.), a note book and 8 wireless sets which nobody can work.3

  The Brigade Major was exaggerating, but not by mu
ch. Whilst Bob had lost his capable Administration Officer, ‘Slinger’ Martin, he still had Waugh, who was clearly unsuitable for the command of troops and so was appointed Adjutant, and not one but two Naval Liaison Officers, Walter Cowan, ‘disguised as a Commander’,4 and Peter Beatty, ‘disguised as a soldier’.5

  On the same day that Bob received his orders, Keyes came aboard both ships to address his departing troops, whom he had only been persuaded to release with great reluctance. His words were stirring, but he gave no hint of the destination or, indeed, of the role which the three Commandos were going to play. Bob knew they were bound for the Middle East, but was as unclear on their military objective as Keyes and Haydon, the latter telling Bob that he had no information at all on the subject and that, whereas the force might operate as a whole, it was just as likely that one or more of the Commandos would be ordered to take independent action.

  On 1 February the convoy, joined by the Cunard liner SS Georgic with reinforcements for the Middle East and escorted by the light cruiser HMS Devonshire and some destroyers, sailed from the Firth of Clyde, almost immediately encountering a strong gale. Conditions in the Glen ships were appalling. Although three officers were required to share cabins originally designed for two, they were in a state of great comfort compared to the men, who were packed like sardines into recently constructed mess decks, where they slept in hammocks. In spite of their recent experiences in boats of many sizes, seasickness was rife for the next three days whilst the gale lasted. Bob insisted on as many men as possible getting into the fresh air on deck, but this was only really practicable for large numbers when the rough weather subsided. Thereafter, PT and weapons training, which included instruction on the ship’s armament of 4-inch guns, 2-pounder pom-poms and 20mm cannon, were the order of most days, although a small canvas swimming pool was rigged up in the tropics.

  Officers were required to prepare and give lectures, and Bob, who had prudently brought along a large number of maps and charts, ran TEWTs based on these. By far the most comprehensive TEWT, which took several mornings to complete, was a plan for the capture of the island of Rhodes, with the support of both tanks and artillery. Bob was able to comment with authority on the solutions produced by the various syndicates as he had visited the island before the War

  Relations between the Army and the Royal Navy in the Glenroy’s wardroom remained poor, and the fault lay almost entirely with the former. ‘I was beginning to wonder,’ Bob wrote later, ‘whether I would not have been wiser to have recruited a lot of stodgy, plodding, patient beings rather than the high-spirited, aggressive, devil-may-care individualists whom I had originally been convinced were the right type for the Commandos.’6 Many of the officers had travelled in luxury liners before the War and expected much the same treatment now. The wardroom had been re-arranged with small tables, but even so there had to be two sittings for each meal. On one occasion Philip Dunne, having been asked to make way at the first sitting for the Chief Engineer and the Paymaster Lieutenant Commander, caused great offence by comparing his treatment with being refused a seat in a restaurant car on a train so that the engine driver and the ticket collector could be served first. On the following morning Eddie FitzClarence, standing just aft of the bridge, compounded the affront when approached by a naval officer determined to be friendly, who asked him the time. FitzClarence replied that he had not got a clue but suggested, pointing up to Captain Paget, that he should ask ‘that silly looking booby on the roof ’.7

  That evening Bob assembled all the Army officers in the wardroom, where he read them the Riot Act, telling them that they were guests of the Navy and that, if there was any repetition of such behaviour, the officer concerned would be returned to his unit from the next port. Peter Beatty volunteered, as NLO, to make amends with the captain. Bob replied that it would be far more appropriate for him to do this himself, but found when he met Paget that not only had Beatty, in his enthusiasm, got there first, but that he had made matters much worse by explaining to the captain that the Army officers had expected to find themselves with the ‘real Navy’ and not with a collection of amateurs!

  Cowan shared the Army’s view of their ship’s officers, although he tried not to let it show. Notwithstanding his reduction in rank to Commander, he was in practice immeasurably senior to all others on board and thus, whilst his criticisms were never voiced openly, Paget was only too aware that the beady eye of a former Naval Commander-in-Chief was on him at all times, which made him distinctly tetchy. It might have been expected that he would ask Cowan to mess with him, but the arrangement would probably have been embarrassing to both. The solution to this problem of protocol was for Cowan and Bob to use a small compartment next to the wardroom, in which a table was laid for their exclusive use. Cowan had a badly fitting set of false teeth, which meant that he ate very slowly, but Bob was invariably fascinated by the tales from his long career and thus not disposed to hurry him up.

  By way of entertainment after dinner, the wardroom was turned into a casino. There was a table each for roulette, chemin-de-fer and baccarat, and two for poker, one high stakes for the rich or the good players, the other low stakes, run by Waugh for beginners. He would only allow his pupils to graduate to the other table when he thought they were ready, and many returned for a refresher course having lost a great deal of money in the meantime. David Stirling was one of the gamblers, but disliked any other form of organized activity. Instead he spent more and more of his time asleep in his cabin, gaining the nickname ‘the giant sloth’.

  On 10 February the convoy anchored off Freetown in Sierra Leone for twenty-four hours. Nobody was allowed ashore, but the troops were just happy to have something new to look at, both by day and by night, as there was no blackout. The exception was Bob, who was summoned to report to the Area Commander, taking Campbell with him. The general turned out to be none other than Christopher Woolner, the officer who had ticked off Bob in the BEF for allegedly lowering morale with his description of the poor state of the French Army. Woolner was perfectly pleasant, however, and not a little intrigued by the Commandos. Whilst ashore, Bob met for the first time Bill Stirling, David’s brother, who was travelling in the Glenearn and had also been ordered to report to Woolner.

  The next leg of the voyage was through the tropics and the ship became increasingly unpleasant in the heat. Tropical kit was issued, including shirts with collar pads and pith helmets, to which the members of 11 Commando attached their black hackles. Bob, mindful of his experiences on the Herzogin Cecilie and against the advice of the doctors, thought that it would be preferable for the men to shed most of their clothing. They found this far more comfortable, and there were no cases of sunstroke. Sleeping conditions, on the other hand, were atrocious. Even the officers, three to a small cabin, were suffering, not least Randolph Churchill, who was sharing a cabin, known to all as ‘the pigsty’, with Stavordale, whose huge frame overflowed his bunk, and Waugh, who insisted on smoking evil-smelling cheroots. In desperation he elected to sleep on an inflatable mattress outside, only to receive the full force of two fire hoses early in the morning when the wooden deck was swabbed down.

  The only excitement on this leg of the voyage came when a signal was received that the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were believed to be in the general vicinity. The convoy was clearly no match for them and the captains agreed that their only chance if attacked was to try to get away under cover of smoke. Cowan was horrified at any thought of retreat and insisted that he should be lowered over the side in a motor torpedo boat which was slung in Glenroy’s davits, so that he could engage the enemy. Happily, another signal was then received that the Germans were elsewhere.

  On 19 February the convoy arrived at Cape Town, where at last its passengers were allowed to disembark. Pedder showed what 11 Commando was made of by marching it to the top of Table Mountain and back in record time, accompanied by Cowan, who in spite of his age of seventy and his height of 5 feet 4 inches, matched the soldiers step for
step, going off afterwards to dine with his old friend, the South African Prime Minister Field Marshal Smuts. Route marches of a less arduous nature were undertaken by the other two Commandos. The hospitality extended to all ranks by the South Africans was outstanding, as every wartime convoy found, but the ships were only there for forty-eight hours.

  The final leg of the journey was uneventful, although the new escorts, HMS Dorsetshire and HMS Glasgow, were briefly despatched to hunt for a German commerce raider which failed to materialize. A scheduled call at Durban was cancelled and the convoy sailed without stopping until it arrived at Suez on 7 March. The troops were told to stay on board, but Bob was ordered to proceed by car to Cairo. Accompanied by Cowan, he arrived in the Egyptian capital and booked into Shepheard’s Hotel. On the following morning, he reported to Major General John Evetts, the GOC of 6 Division, under whose command Layforce, as Z Force was now renamed, would initially come. Evetts was highly enthusiastic about the Commandos, telling Bob that he had an operation lined up which would suit them very well:

  He said that he had permission to divulge the objective to me but that it was for my ears and my ears only. One breath out of me on that subject would result in an immediate Court Martial. Rather dramatically he said: ‘I shall mention one word to you now, but neither of us will ever use it again until a certain date unless we are behind closed doors.’ Needless to say, that word was Rhodes.8

  When Bob explained that he and his officers had spent some days planning an assault on the very island, Evetts nearly had a fit. When he recovered, he said that there was no point in crying over spilt milk, but that Bob should instead leave a map of Sicily, marked ‘Most Secret’, lying about in his HQ tent to put anyone off the scent. Bob had to explain that his officers and men had been taught to put tight security above any other consideration and would quickly realize that this was a ruse.