The Last Great Cavalryman

by Richard Mead

  Chapter 15

  Chief of Staff

  ‘General Staff conferences are going on with no sign of a change!’ wrote Dick in his diary on 11 August, but he himself was seeing Alexander every day to prepare for taking over, although his own appointment did not formally start until 23 August. Auchinleck’s hopes of a measured transfer of authority were abruptly disrupted by the arrival in Cairo of the man who would instantly become the dominant figure in the theatre. Churchill’s original intention had been that ‘Strafer’ Gott, who was by then the most experienced general in the Western Desert, would assume the command of Eighth Army, but Gott was killed on 7 August when the plane in which he was travelling was shot down by German fighters. Tragic though this was it was also providential, as there is evidence that Gott was not only tired, but also as bereft of new ideas as Auchinleck. The man who was sent for to replace him was Montgomery, who arrived on 12 August. Disregarding the agreed timetable, he went up to the front on the following day, from where he sent a message that he had assumed command. Auchinleck was furious, but could do nothing about the fait accompli.

  Two days later Alexander took over as commander-in-chief and immediately moved the GHQ out of Cairo to a site on the edge of the desert at Mena, close to the Pyramids, where most of the staff was accommodated in tents. Dick welcomed the move: he had been staying in a room in the Turf Club, which had not been entirely to his taste, and he disliked the atmosphere of the old GHQ building. The new site was not only more comfortable, markedly cooler at night, but also engendered a far more businesslike approach.

  Although recognizing the importance of his new job and looking forward to working for Alexander, whom he knew he complemented well, Dick was disappointed that he was to continue on the staff rather than in the field. This was in spite of the fact that the appointment had brought with it promotion to acting lieutenant general, although, as he wrote to Lettice, ‘later for various reasons I may come down again to Maj-Gen… It is rather sad, however, still being stuck to an office stool for a lot of my time.’1 His first week was interrupted by the reappearance from Moscow of Churchill and Brooke, who both took up a lot of his and Alexander’s time agreeing the organization of Middle East Command, which was to hive off a new Persia and Iraq Command to ‘Jumbo’ Wilson, but to retain Palestine, Transjordan and Syria, as well as Sudan and the Horn of Africa. It was necessary to agree the appropriate allocation of troops to Wilson, which was not easy against the background of demands by Montgomery. The Eighth Army Commander had already persuaded Alexander to send up the newly arrived 44 Division, overruling the latter’s own staff, who considered that it was not yet acclimatized to the desert, and he was to do much the same for 51 (Highland) Division, reformed after the debacle at St Valéry and disembarking at Port Tewfik that very week.

  On a more positive note, a reorganization of the armoured divisions took place to reflect broadly the same structure adopted earlier in the year in Home Forces, the only significant difference being an increase in the field artillery regiments from two to three. Out went brigade groups for both armoured and infantry divisions, the artillery, engineers and supporting services all becoming divisional troops under their own commanders. On one principle all the senior officers, including Alexander, Montgomery and Dick, were united: in future all types of division would fight as complete formations. Montgomery’s immediate order to Eighth Army, that all plans for a withdrawal to the Delta would be scrapped and that it would stand at El Alamein and defeat Rommel there, was also entirely in line with Dick’s thinking, although at Churchill’s express command measures were put in place to defend Cairo and the line of the Nile, lest Rommel should break through.

  At the top of the many pressing issues confronting Montgomery was the appointment of corps commanders. Three would be needed since one of his first demands, made on the day of his arrival to John Harding, now the DCGS, was the creation of a new corps de chasse, to be composed largely of armour and used as a reserve for a major offensive. Within days Harding came up with a proposal to revive X Corps and incorporate within it three armoured divisions – 1, 8 and 10 – and 2 New Zealand Division. A commander would be required for the new formation as well as one to replace Gott in XIII Corps, whilst Ramsden in XXX Corps was unacceptable to Montgomery.

  Montgomery had by then already sent for Brian Horrocks from the UK and it was his original intention to appoint him to X Corps. Horrocks had commanded 9 Armoured Division in England, but was himself an infantryman and had no experience of armour in action. Dick felt very strongly that the right man for X Corps was Lumsden, who had commanded 1 Armoured Division with distinction at Gazala and had also fought in the July battles, although he had been as exasperated as Dick with Auchinleck’s employment of armour. Dick strongly recommended Lumsden to Alexander and Montgomery, but the latter did not know him well and was dubious about his record, preferring as always to trust only those of whom he had personal experience. As soon as Horrocks arrived in Cairo, Dick met him to advance the case for Lumsden and found him in ready agreement. Horrocks subsequently claimed that it was he who persuaded Montgomery to accept this arrangement and indeed this is likely, as Montgomery was unlikely to listen to Dick. When Alexander, accompanied by Dick, paid his first official visit to Eighth Army in his capacity as C-in-C, Lumsden was confirmed in command, somewhat against Montgomery’s better judgement. Dick recorded later that when he saw Lumsden on the following day ‘there is no doubt that he was worried. He gave me the clear impression that he would not get on with General Montgomery. Certainly the two never hit it off.’2 This would all come home to roost in due course.

  Montgomery’s demand for 44 Division was justified by his decision to fight a defensive battle against Rommel at the earliest opportunity. This came less than three weeks after his arrival, when the Panzerarmee Afrika was launched through the minefields just north of the Qattara Depression with a view to outflanking Eighth Army to the south. Finding 7 Armoured Division in its path, it hooked north towards the Alam Halfa Ridge. Montgomery had anticipated this, his anti-tank guns well dug in and his armoured brigades in hull-down positions from which they were forbidden to emerge in the kind of senseless charges to which they had been accustomed. After two days of battering his head against a brick wall, Rommel found the initiative passing to the British and a day later he began to withdraw, bombed by the RAF and shelled on his flanks by ground forces. It was a vital victory, which bought Montgomery breathing space to prepare for his future offensive at El Alamein.

  By this time the relationship between Montgomery and Alexander had become clear and it was not by any means the normal chain of command. Montgomery was absolutely determined to do things his own way, depending on Alexander to provide him with the tools for the job and to keep the War Office and the politicians, particularly Churchill, off his back, while leaving all military decisions to him. Although Montgomery welcomed Alexander’s position as a buffer between him and higher authority, his opinion of the C-in-C’s military skills, formed when he had taught him at Staff College and unchanged by subsequent events, was not high and this frequently translated into rudeness towards his superior, verging at times on insubordination.

  For Dick and the staff of Middle East Command, this was very difficult to bear. The relationships between them and the individual members of Montgomery’s staff, now led by Freddie de Guingand, were for the most part very good, but they resented deeply the Eighth Army Commander’s cavalier attitude towards their chief and his occasional interference in matters which did not concern him, such as the selection of officers for command outside his own army. Dick himself was made of sterner stuff than Alexander and was not going to be bullied. Brigadier A. F. ‘Fish’ Fisher, then in command of 2 Armoured Brigade and himself a former 12th Lancer, was visiting Montgomery’s HQ one day and saw that Dick’s car was just outside his caravan. ‘I kept well out of the way. But one could not help overhearing a heated conversation taking place in the Caravan. I cannot remember the exact words
but the gist of the remarks were – that if Monty was not going to obey orders he received from G.H.Q. there would be a vacancy for a new Commander of the 8th Army. Few people other than Dick would have been able to say this to Monty when he was at the height of his success in the Desert.’3 Charles Miller, Major General Administration later in the campaign, wrote subsequently that ‘Dick’s characteristic loyalty and singlemindedness caused him to show outspoken resentment at Gen Montgomery’s disloyalty to Gen Alexander – but these were brushed aside by Gen Alexander’s tact – “keep your eye on the ball” was a favourite remark.’4

  As Dick was later to concede, such an approach may have rankled, but it worked. In an appreciation of Alexander written after the War, he put these words into the C-in-C’s mouth: ‘There is only one active army in my command and Montgomery is in command of it. The essence of my job here is to support him in every way I can, to handle all the political problems involved with many allies, and let Monty get on with the battle.’ Dick described Alexander’s attitude as ‘typically unselfish’, but in practice the C-in-C had no other option in dealing with a very difficult and sometimes wayward subordinate.

  That Dick was prepared to stand up to Montgomery did not go down well with the latter. Charles Richardson, Eighth Army’s GSO1 (Plans), was later to recall that ‘Monty disparaged McCreery, in my view unjustifiably’5 and personal relations between the two men were cool for the rest of Dick’s career. For his part, Dick never really liked Montgomery and deplored his showmanship. On the other hand, there was a higher level of professional respect on each side than either Montgomery’s disparagement or Dick’s hidden dislike and his public criticism of Montgomery a decade and a half after the end of the war might suggest. Just after Montgomery’s arrival in Egypt he asked for Dick to carry out some unspecified job, which may even have been a corps command, and in March 1943, as the campaign in North Africa was moving towards its climax, Montgomery proposed to Alexander that Horrocks should be sent back to the UK as an experienced corps commander for the invasion of France and that Dick should take his place. When Horrocks was later badly injured, he endorsed the decision that Dick should succeed him. Like many others, he also regretted him stepping down in due course as Alexander’s chief of staff, although his criticism not long beforehand that Dick was out of touch with the practical side of battle fighting was unfair. Dick, for his part, always gave Montgomery full credit for restoring the morale of Eighth Army and was later to write to Lettice that he was certainly the best person to command the Allied ground forces in Normandy on and after D-Day.

  In the meantime, the two men had to work for the common goal and to that end Dick did not spare himself or others. Brigadier George Davy, the director of military operations at GHQ Middle East, wrote later that ‘he drove the staff and services very hard indeed so as to ensure the success of the Eighth Army, and nobody could drive people harder than he if he wanted!’6 As David Hunt, then a GSO2 (Intelligence) at GHQ Middle East, was to find along with many others, Dick’s restrained manner and his seemingly soft voice could be misleading: ‘When displeased about anything he would curse in the same slightly quavering rather refined voice, never raised above a murmur, but mixing complaints and threats with curiously old-fashioned but signally pungent blasphemies and obscenities.’7

  Davy expressed both admiration and affection for Dick and such sentiments were replicated at all levels. Dick’s new Personal Assistant, Patrick Stewart from the 11th Hussars, wrote in his diary ten days after joining GHQ: ‘Because he works so hard, is so impatient & apparently helpless, he inspires much affection and loyalty.’8 The helplessness on which Stewart remarked probably referred to one side of Dick’s nature which only occasionally manifested itself, an apparent inability to tackle quite small and mundane practical tasks (changing an electric plug for example, or a tyre). It was certainly not a characteristic of his approach to bigger issues.

  Through September and into early October, Dick’s preoccupation remained with bringing Eighth Army up to full strength, working closely with the Lieutenant General Administration, Tommy Lindsell. In addition to getting the Highland Division and other formations up to the front, the major task was to prepare in newly established workshops the 300 Sherman tanks which President Roosevelt had presented to Churchill and to organize training on them.9 Although somewhat inclined to catch fire on being hit, these were outstanding armoured fighting vehicles, mechanically reliable and armed with an excellent dual-purpose 75mm gun, which gave the British for the first time parity with their opponents. There were not enough Shermans to equip fully all the formations: including replacements, about 300 Crusaders, a third of them with an improved 6-pounder gun, and 200 Lee/Grants provided most of the balance, whilst 23 Armoured Brigade was still equipped entirely with Valentines. Some 200 Stuarts also remained on the establishment, the majority in 7 Armoured Division’s 4 Light Armoured Brigade.

  Dick was still required to participate in innumerable meetings. Some of these were with politicians, notably Richard Casey, an Australian who had been appointed by Churchill as Minister of State Resident in the Middle East and was effectively the prime minister’s eyes and ears on the spot. Others were held with the RAF, whose AOC-in-C, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, was reluctant to cede any operational control of his force, although Montgomery improved cooperation enormously by having the HQ of the Western Desert Air Force co-located with his own. Last but not least, Alexander was responsible for relations with the Dominions and with Allies, both the Free French and the Greeks having brigade-sized formations in Eighth Army, and Dick was pulled into the various discussions taking place about their deployment. In spite of his concerns about being deskbound, Dick was able to make frequent visits to Eighth Army, to discuss preparations with Montgomery and his staff and to visit the subordinate commanders. New arrivals from the UK included Oliver Leese to replace Ramsden at XXX Corps, which would bear the brunt of the forthcoming battle, and Harry Arkwright to act as Montgomery’s own advisor on AFV(armoured fighting vehicles). John Harding left GHQ to command 7 Armoured Division.

  On the night of 23/24 October Montgomery launched Operation Lightfoot, his major set-piece battle designed to destroy the Panzerarmee Afrika. Whilst XIII Corps in the south was restricted to feint attacks with a view to keeping a large part of the Axis armour there, the first part of the main advance was undertaken on a 10-mile front by four of the five infantry divisions in XXX Corps, which from north to south were 9 Australian, 51 Highland, 2 New Zealand and 1 South African. The infantry was given a clear objective, to advance through the belt of minefields and fixed anti-tank defences and seize Miteirya Ridge and the area to its north-west. Two corridors would then be created, one between the Australians and the Highlanders for 1 Armoured Division to pass through and establish itself on another key feature, Kidney Ridge, the other between the Highlanders and the New Zealanders for 10 Armoured Division to cross Miteirya Ridge into the flat desert beyond. The armour would then provide a defensive shield against counter-attack by the Axis armour whilst the infantry engaged in ‘crumbling’ operations on the flanks to wear down the enemy and create the conditions for a break-out.

  The infantry advance, preceded by the heaviest artillery barrage since the Great War, was substantially successful. However, Lumsden’s divisions were delayed in their advance by the relatively slow clearance of the minefields by the sappers, the poor visibility caused by sand and dust and congestion in the corridors. Neither 1 nor 10 Armoured Division was able to reach its objectives, largely because of hidden minefields and anti-tank defences in much greater depth than anticipated. The former was forced to deploy either side of its corridor, whilst the latter sheltered behind Miteirya Ridge. Although further small advances were made by the infantry in the next 24 hours, a new attempt to break through with the armour was equally unsuccessful.

  At 0200 hrs on 25 October Montgomery was awoken by de Guingand to be told that the battle was in a state of crisis. Not only was there no further
progress, but confidence had broken down between the infantry and armoured division commanders. Lumsden and Leese were both summoned to Montgomery’s HQ , where the army commander told Lumsden in no uncertain terms that he should follow the plan and then rang Alec Gatehouse of 10 Armoured Division to order him to fight his way out across the Miteirya Ridge. This proved impossible, due to the strength of the German 88 mm guns on the reverse side of the ridge. Under New Zealand command, 9 Armoured Brigade had penetrated beyond, but found itself hopelessly exposed and in due course forced to retreat.

  The battle had now reached a stalemate, although ‘crumbling’ operations continued, with particular success by the Australians around the Tel el Eisa feature in the north. A reshuffle took place in XXX Corps, with the New Zealanders moving into reserve and the South Africans sidestepping into their place, themselves relieved by 4 Indian Division. Montgomery’s staff began to draw up a new plan, Operation Supercharge, which proposed a concentrated attack due east along the coast.

  Back in Cairo Dick had been watching developments with mounting concern. He was much later to write a trenchant criticism of both Montgomery’s plan and his use of armour, but Alexander had approved Operation Lightfoot and there is no evidence of Dick trying to have it changed in any way or even doubting its effectiveness at the time. On the evening of 26 October he had over an hour with Brigadier Julian Gascoigne, who had just returned from XXX Corps HQ.10 In his diary he wrote: ‘He says that Gatehouse and Herbert have been very sticky and that the name of the armour is mud. Early on the armour could have got through.’ Dick was later to act as an apologist for the armour and, indeed others were subsequently to accept that their stance was understandable, even realistic, but at the time this was a clear manifestation of much going wrong.