CHAPTER FIVE
MONTGOMERY
Abrasive, opinionated, at times infuriating to superiors, equals, and subordinates alike, ‘Monty’ was inimitable. The key to his character was supreme confidence and refusal to allow himself to be diverted by worrying over details. Added to all this was a genuine flair for ‘getting through to the rank and file, to make them feel that they were being led by a no-nonsense general who knew what he was doing’. The sum total was the most colourful British general of World War Two, who delivered the goods by winning victories.
Bernard Law Montgomery was born on 17th November 1887, the son of a London vicar. In 1889 his family moved to Tasmania, where his father had been appointed Bishop. Returning in 1901, the young Montgomery spent five years at St. Paul's School before entering the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He passed out in 1908, joining the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and was commissioned into the 1st Battalion as a second lieutenant, and posted overseas later that year to India. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1910, and in 1912 became adjutant of the 1st Battalion.
When World War One broke out in August 1914, Montgomery’s regiment moved to France. He saw action at the Battle of Le Cateau during the retreat from Mons and was shot through the right lung by a sniper. Montgomery was hit once more in the knee and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for gallantry. After recovering, he returned to the Western Front in early 1916 as a staff officer in the 33rd Division and took part in the Battle of Arras in April/May 1917. He became a general staff officer with IX Corps, part of General Sir Herbert Plumer's Second Army, in July 1917, finishing the war as chief of staff of the 47th (2nd London) Division. Montgomery was shocked by the murderous cost of the fighting, and by the detachment of the High Command from the fighting troops. These were lessons he never forgot.
Montgomery commanded the 17th Battalion, the Fusiliers, serving in the British ‘Army of the Rhine’ before reverting to his peacetime rank of captain in November 1919. He had not been selected initially for Staff College (his only hope of ever achieving high command), but was able to persuade the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of Occupation, Sir William Robertson, to add his name to the list.
After graduating from Staff College, he was promoted to the rank of major in the 17th Infantry Brigade in January 1921. The brigade was stationed in County Cork carrying out counter-insurgency operations during the final stages of the Irish War of Independence. Montgomery came to the conclusion that the conflict could not be won by conventional means, and that self-government was the only feasible solution.
In 1923, after the establishment of the Irish Free State and during the Irish Civil War, Montgomery wrote to Colonel Arthur Percival (later of Singapore disaster) of the Essex Regiment: “Personally, my whole attention was given to defeating the rebels but it never bothered me a bit how many houses were burnt. I think I regarded all civilians as rebels and I never had any dealings with any of them. My own view is that to win a war of this sort, you must be ruthless. Oliver Cromwell, or the Germans, would have settled it in a very short time. Nowadays, public opinion precludes such methods, the nation would never allow it, and the politicians would lose their jobs if they sanctioned it. That being so, I consider that Lloyd George was right in what he did, if we had gone on we could probably have squashed the rebellion as a temporary measure, but it would have broken out again like an ulcer the moment we removed the troops”.
He returned to 1st Royal Warwickshire Regiment again, as Commander of Headquarters Company in January 1929 and went to the War Office to assist in the writing of the Infantry Training Manual. In 1931 Montgomery was promoted to lieutenant-colonel commanding the 1st Battalion and saw service in India and Palestine. On his promotion to colonel in June 1934, he became an instructor at the Indian Army Staff College. On completion of his tour of duty in India, Montgomery returned to Britain in June 1937. As brigadier general he became commanding officer of the 9th Infantry Brigade. In 1938, he organised an amphibious combined operations landing exercise that impressed the new commander-in-chief, Southern Command, General Wavell. He was promoted to major-general in October 1938, and took command of the 8th Infantry Division in Palestine. There he quashed an Arab revolt before returning in July 1939 to Britain, to command the 3rd Infantry Division.
In 1927, he had met and married Elizabeth Carver, née Hobart, widow of Oswald Carver, Olympic rowing medallist who was killed in World War One. Elizabeth Carver was the sister of the World War Two commander Percy Hobart (Hobart’s Funnies on D Day). Montgomery and his wife were a devoted couple, and their son, David, was born in August 1928. But the marriage ended in tragedy, with Elizabeth’s death in 1937 after a long illness. While on holiday, she had suffered an insect bite which became infected, and she died in his arms from septicaemia following an amputation. It was a tremendous blow and the loss devastated Montgomery, but he insisted on throwing himself back into his work immediately after the funeral. In his memoirs Montgomery writes "The three outstanding human beings in my life have been my father, my wife, and my son. When my father died in 1932, I little thought that five years later I would be left alone with my son”.
On 3rd September 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. Montgomery’s 3rd Division was deployed to Belgium as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Lord Gort. At this time, Montgomery faced serious trouble with his military superiors and the clergy. This was due to his frank attitude regarding the sexual health of his soldiers, but was defended by his superior Alan Brooke, commander of II Corps.
When the Germans began their invasion of the Low Countries and France on 10th May 1940, Montgomery's training methods really paid off. The 3rd Division, disastrously, as it transpired, advanced to the River Dyle, only to hastily withdraw to Dunkirk, after it was realised that this was not the main attack and they had walked into a trap. Montgomery showed great professionalism, entering the Dunkirk perimeter in a famous night march. He placed his forces on the left flank which had been left exposed by the Belgian surrender. The 3rd Division was evacuated to Britain almost intact and with minimal casualties.
Montgomery antagonised the War Office with trenchant criticisms of the BEF performance in France. He was, nevertheless, appointed lieutenant-general in July 1940, and placed in command of V Corps, responsible for the defence of Hampshire and Dorset. A long-running feud with the new commander-in-chief, Southern Command, Claude Auchinleck developed. Montgomery then assumed command of the II Corps. Later commanding V Corps and XII Corps during the "invasion scare" period.
During this time he instituted a programme of continuous training and insisted on high levels of physical fitness for both officers and other ranks. He was ruthless in sacking officers he considered would be unfit for field command. He further developed and rehearsed his ideas for training his troops, culminating in May 1942 with a combined forces exercise involving one hundred thousand men. In August 1942 Montgomery was informed that he would be commanding 1st Army during ‘Torch’, the scheduled landings in North Africa, but this plan dramatically changed.
Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had already decided that a new field command structure was required in the Middle East, where Auchinleck was fulfilling both the role of commander-in-chief Middle East Command and commander of the 8th Army. He had stabilised the Allied position at the First Battle of El Alamein, but after a visit in August 1942, the Prime Minister replaced Auchinleck as commander-in-chief with General Alexander and General Gott as commander of the Eighth Army in the Western Desert. After Gott was shot down and killed flying back to Cairo Churchill was persuaded by Alan Brooke, who by this time was Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), to appoint Montgomery.
General Sir Harold Alexander was born in 1891 and entered the British Army by means of Sandhurst. He served with great distinction with the Irish Guards in World War One and after the war served in India. Alexander commanded the British rear-guard at Dunkirk very ably, and further enhanced his reputation as General Officer in Command (G.O.C.), Southern Command in 1940 and by his masterly retreat through Burma in 1942. He was then appointed Eisenhower's deputy for Operation Torch, but almost immediately took over from Auchinleck in the Western Desert, with Montgomery commanding in the field, and Alexander in overall command,
A story, probably apocryphal but popular at the time, is that the appointment caused Montgomery to remark that "After having an easy war, things have now got much more difficult”. A colleague is supposed to have told him to cheer up, at which point Montgomery said "I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about Rommel”.
In taking up his command he was fortunate to find that Auchinleck had fought Rommel to a stand-still in Egypt and new supplies of tanks and other essential equipment were already on the way. But there were snags. It was clear that Rommel was going to make one last attempt to turn the Alamein line and 8th Army's morale was not good. Montgomery's first battle would be not so much to hold Rommel but to stiffen 8th Army's backbone to defeat the new attack and pass to the offensive for good. He, therefore, issued orders that there would be no further retreat at any cost.
Montgomery's assumption of command transformed the fighting spirit and abilities of the 8th Army. Taking command on 13th August 1942, he immediately became a whirlwind of activity. Montgomery reinforced the 30 miles long front line at El Alamein, something that would take two months to accomplish. Montgomery was determined that the Army, Navy and Air Forces should fight their battles in a unified, focused manner according to a detailed plan. He ordered immediate reinforcement of the vital heights of Alam Halfa, expecting Rommel to attack the heights, something that Rommel soon did. Montgomery ordered all contingency plans for retreat to be destroyed. "I have cancelled the plan for withdrawal. If we are attacked, then there will be no retreat. If we cannot stay here alive, then we will stay here dead", he told his officers at the first meeting he held with them.
Montgomery made a great effort to appear before troops. He set in motion tours of the front and showing himself to the men, as often as possible, with the gimmick of a flamboyant selection of cap badges as his identifying mark. Although he still wore a standard British officer's cap on arrival in the desert, he briefly wore an Australian broad-brimmed hat before switching to wearing the black beret (with the badge of the Royal Tank Regiment next to the British General Officer's badge) for which he became notable. Another notable contribution to 8th Army's morale reconstruction was his cracking down on what he called "bellyaching", pessimistic quibbling by subordinate commanders. And the first, vital victory at Alam Halfa at the beginning of September 1942 was the well-earned result frequently visiting various units and making himself known to the men. Both Brooke and Alexander were astonished by the transformation in atmosphere when they visited on 19th August 1942, less than a week after Montgomery had taken command.
The difference between defeat at Gazala, the previous July, under Auchinleck and Ritchie, and the coming victory at El Alamein, lay in generalship; Montgomery’s generalship. Montgomery's Battle of El Alamein was won by three critical pre-battle decisions taken long before the British artillery opened fire on 23rd October 1942, and by four equally important decisions taken during the battle itself. Hitler took the first of the pre-battle decisions in April 1942 when he reversed the agreed Axis Mediterranean strategy for the summer campaign. Malta was to have been seized to protect Axis supply lines across the central Mediterranean before Rommel opened his Gazala offensive. Hitler disliked the proposed plan for a combined Italo-German parachute and amphibious assault on Malta, because he feared a costly repetition of the German invasion of Crete in 1941, so Rommel had little difficulty in persuading him that his Panzer Army's attack on the British at Gazala should be given priority. Malta could be taken later. Rommel won his field-marshal's baton for smashing the Gazala Line and taking Tobruk; Hitler lost Africa when he compounded his original strategic error by allowing Rommel to plunge onward into Egypt with Malta still unsubdued behind him. The battle of supply turned against the Axis, and by the third week of October, just four months after the fall of Tobruk, the Eighth Army had regained quantitative and qualitative superiority over Rommel’s Panzer Army.
The second critical pre-battle decision stemmed from General Sir Alan Brooke's request to Churchill for permission to fly from London to Cairo to assess for himself what was wrong with the British forces in the Middle East. Churchill decided to accompany his Chief of the Imperial General Staff and then fly on to Moscow to explain to Stalin the reasons for not mounting a second front in 1943. Their tour of 'the vast but baffled and somewhat unhinged organisation' in Egypt convinced them that there must be a change of command. Their decisions were, however, frustrated, when Gott was killed by the chance action of two Luftwaffe fighter pilots who, in August 1942, shot down the transport aircraft carrying Gott back to Cairo.
Gott's death robbed the Eighth Army of its most experienced and respected desert hand who had fought in all the major battles in the Western Desert. And yet it was sadly fortunate that fate compelled the selection of Montgomery, the second choice, to command the Eighth Army at this critical moment in British affairs. Montgomery was the right man, in the right place, at the right time. He had the depth of military professionalism and the egocentric force of personality to master in a remarkably short time the strengths and weaknesses of his new command and of the many strong personalities who led the British and, more importantly, the Commonwealth contingents. He had the extrovert flare for contrived publicity which enabled him to impress his presence and policies on the Eighth Army. And he believed in the type of military policy needed by the British army at that time. All his generation of British commanders had been junior officers in World War One, which had etched deep prejudices on their minds. Men like Alexander, who had fought principally as regimental officers, were determined not to emulate methods which had led to debilitating loss of life in battles such as the Somme and Passchendaele.
Montgomery prepared meticulously for the new offensive after convincing Churchill that the time was not being wasted. He was determined not to fight until he thought there had been sufficient preparation for a decisive victory. He achieved this with the gathering of resources, detailed planning, the training of troops - especially in clearing minefields and fighting at night, plus, the use of the latest American Sherman tanks, and making a personal visit to every unit involved in the offensive. By the time the offensive was ready in late October, Eighth Army had two hundred and thirty one thousand men.
The British and German positions at El Alamein had much in common with those on the Western Front of 1914-18. There was no way round; the defences had been developed in great depth; the garrisons were securely entrenched; mines laid in profusion replaced barbed wire entanglements; and the men on both sides were too battle-experienced to give up easily. Only a man who was psychologically prepared to fight a ruthless battle of attrition could hope to defeat the Panzer Army at El Alamein in defences which it had strengthened for four months. Montgomery was well cast for this role. But, first, Montgomery had to prove himself to the tired, cynical men of the Eighth Army. They had seen too many failures in the desert to do more than 'Give him a try', as the Australians expressed it. And the third critical pre-battle series of decisions were taken by Montgomery himself at a very late stage in the planning.
In his initial tours of the Eighth Army he emphasized ten points as he talked to officers and men. First, and most important, the Eighth Army was to get out of the habit of having one foot in the stirrup; all withdrawal plans were to be scrapped; forward defences would be strengthened with more troops brought up from the Nile Delta; transport held ready for further withdrawal would be moved to the rear; and all defensive positions would be stocked with ammunition, food and water for a protracted defence. Second, the days of employing small 'ad hoc' columns of all arms (Jock' columns) were over; divisions would be fought as divisions under proper control by corps H.Q"s with artillery, engineer and logistic policy centralized at the highest practical level. Third, there were to be no more failures due to taking unnecessary operational or logistical risks; the Eighth Army would stay "on balance' at all times; it would be deployed and handled in such a way that it need never react to Axis moves to its own disadvantage. Fourth, he was forming a Corps to rival Rommel's Africa Corps. It was to be composed of the 1st, 8th and l0th Armoured Divisions and the 2nd New Zealand Division. Fifth, if Rommel attacked through the weak southern half of the El Alamein towards the end of August, as British intelligence predicted, he would be confronted with the strongly held Alam Halfa Ridge on his northern flank which he could not ignore and upon which his panzer divisions would meet well dug-in British tanks and anti-tank guns. There was to be no 'loosing of the British armour' (allowing them to leave their dug-in positions) in cavalry style which had lost the British so many tank battles in the past.
The training required of the troops was to be reduced to simple battle drills and so thoroughly rehearsed with such realism that men would say during the battle itself, “It's just like an exercise”. Seventh, enthusiasm and a sense of involvement were to be inculcated by telling every officer and man, at the appropriate moment, what was afoot and what was expected of him. This was to be done by commanders at all levels briefing their subordinates much more fully than had been the custom hitherto.
In his instructions for the battle Montgomery said, “Morale is the big thing in war. We must raise the morale of our soldiery to the highest pitch; they must be made enthusiastic, and must enter this battle with their tails high in the air and with the will to win”. Eighth, his own army H.Q. was to move from its present location on the eastern end down to the coast where it would be alongside the Desert Air Force H.Q., and where its staff would be able to work with greater efficiency. Ninth, there was to be no more 'belly-aching': orders were orders and not a basis for discussion. He did not mention publicly, though all his listeners were aware, that he was removing the 'belly-aches' and all those commanders who did not measure up to his standards of professionalism. Few of the senior officers who fought at Gazala survived this purge.
Rommel attempted to turn the left flank of the 8th Army at the Battle of Alam Halfa from 31st August. The German/Italian armoured Corps infantry attack was stopped in very heavy fighting. Rommel's forces had to withdraw urgently lest their retreat through the British minefields be cut off. Montgomery was criticised for not counterattacking the retreating forces immediately, but he felt strongly that his methodical build-up of British forces was not yet ready. A hasty counter-attack risked ruining his strategy for an offensive on his own terms in late October, planning for which had begun soon after he took command. And tenth, and last, as was appropriate for a God-fearing man and son of a bishop, he did not neglect his Christian upbringing, ending his pre-battle order of the day: “Let us pray that the Lord Mighty in battle will give us the victory”.
Montgomery was given the opportunity to demonstrate his abilities just a fortnight after taking over command. Rommel did attack, where and when predicted, and was stopped as Montgomery planned by British tanks and anti-tank guns defending the Alam Halfa Ridge. In Rommel's enforced retreat the R.A.F. and the Eighth Army artillery inflicted heavy losses upon the Axis forces. There was no counter-attack. The Eighth Army stood fast and went on with its preparations with renewed confidence in itself and a growing enthusiasm for Montgomery's leadership. Montgomery's first concept for El Alamein was based upon the orthodox belief, which had been held by successive British commanders in the Western Desert, that the Axis armoured forces must be destroyed first. He envisaged blasting two breaches in the Axis defences through which he would place it on ground of its own choosing. The Axis armoured divisions would be compelled to attack at a disadvantage, as at AIam Halfa, to prise the British tanks off their life-line. The two breaches would not be equal in size or importance. The main breach would be made in the north, using four infantry divisions.
The secondary breach would be a diversionary effort designed to pin down the Axis reserves in the south. No heavy casualties were to be incurred but to make sure that the operations were realistic enough to hold the enemy’s attention. As detailed preparations and training went ahead doubts began to arise in the minds of several of the senior commanders. They thought that his plan was too ambitious. The British armoured commanders doubted whether the infantry divisions would be able to reach their objective in one night, and whether the artillery would be able to neutralise the German anti-tank guns when their tanks tried to fight their way through. All their experience of past desert operations had taught them not to rush anti-tank guns and minefields in broad daylight with inadequate infantry and artillery support. The Commonwealth infantry commanders, with equally bitter memories of the failure of British tanks to give them adequate support, doubted whether the British armoured divisions, would try to break out at all.
After pondering these views, Montgomery took a further critical pre-battle decision. He reversed the orthodox concept: “My modified plan now was to hold off, or contain, the enemy armour, while we carried out a methodical destruction of the infantry divisions holding the defensive system”. This was a radical change of policy, but fortunately necessitated only a change in emphasis rather than a major change of plan. The X Corps' armoured divisions would be given a more modest objective, they were to fend off Axis counter-attacks while the British infantry dealt with their Axis opponents. Montgomery put his new plan to his army using colourfully expressive phrases which have since entered the British army's military vocabulary. There would be a quick 'break-in' by the infantry and an equally "quick passage of the armour". Then there would be a prolonged 'dogfight' lasting ten to twelve days during which the British infantry and their supporting tanks would 'crumble' away the Axis static defences, using carefully prepared but limited attacks supported by heavy artillery and air bombardments. And finally, when Axis endurance had been brought to the point of collapse, the 'break-out' phase would come with the British armoured divisions delivering the decisive blow.
On the Axis side, the adverse effects of Hitler's mistaken change of strategy were becoming increasingly apparent. Rommel found himself so short of fuel and spare parts for his tanks and vehicles that he was forced to adopt a defensive posture alien to his instincts. Instead of keeping his German and Italian tank formations concentrated for decisive counter-attacks of the type that had so often won him the advantage in the past, he deployed them in six mixed German and Italian armoured groups evenly spaced and close behind his static defences so that they could intervene quickly to seal off any British penetration before it became a major breach. This would save fuel, and it would reduce the distances his tanks would have to move in daylight and hence lessen their vulnerability to an R.A.F. attack. In the northern sector, the Panzer Divisions provided three mixed Italo-German groups, and in the south the Panzers also combined to provide three more. The German and Italian infantry divisions, which were not mechanized, were deployed within the main defensive line to stop the British singling out Italian sectors for attack. Rommel’s static defences consisted of two deep belts of about half a million anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, running from north to south across the front some one to two miles apart with irregularly spaced and angled lateral belts between them producing a honeycomb effect called 'Devil's Gardens'. But, strong though his positions became, Rommel had no illusions about the battle which he knew was coming. In all great set piece battles the attacker tries to deceive the defender about the exact point and time of the assault. Montgomery's deception plan was worked out and executed with meticulous attention to detail. Its aim was to suggest that the southern sector was under greatest threat; and that the full moon period at the end of November was the most likely date for the next British offensive. Vehicle densities in the desert were adjusted constantly by prolific use of dummy vehicles and tanks to maintain this illusion; bogus radio traffic was propagated to reinforce visual evidence; and the rate of construction of a dummy water pipe-line into the southern sector was timed for completion in mid-November. Some of these measures had their desired effect. Rommel was allowed to return to Germany for medical treatment and much needed sick leave, and was replaced by Panzer General Stumme from the Russian front. Stumme and his staff were deceived into thinking that the British offensive would strike the southern sector.
The decisive Battle of El Alamein commenced at 21 40 hours on 23rd October 1942, with a fifteen-minute air and artillery bombardment of all identified Axis gun positions. The assault infantry crawled out of their slit trenches where they had lain cramped but hidden all day and assembled on their start-lines. For five minutes there was silence; then the guns reopened at 22 00 hours. The night was fine and the moon clear, but the dust thrown up by bursting shells and by the movement of tanks, armoured carriers and other vehicles created a haze which made direction keeping difficult.
The four assault divisions made rapid initial progress through the first minefield belt. Delays thereafter accumulated as the infantry fought their way forward through the 'Devil's Gardens'. By dawn most of the assaulting brigades were on schedule. The pace of clearing lanes for the armoured divisions proved slower than expected. The improvised 'Scorpion' Flail tanks were mechanically unreliable, and the electronic mine detectors failed in a number of lanes, reducing the Sappers to the slow and hazardous business of prodding for mines by hand. When daylight came the 1st Armoured Division was only half-way through the Northern Corridor, with its tank regiments still entangled in the partially cleared gaps in the first minefield, the l0th Armoured Division's sappers in the Southern Corridor had been more successful and had four routes cleared. However, when its tanks tried to nose their way over the ridge they found another minefield and were forced by Axis anti-tank guns to pull back, thus creating congestion.
Reviewing the situation as the first reports came in, Montgomery decided to continue the planned phase for another twenty-four hours before starting the crumbling process of the dog fight. The daylight hours of 24th October belonged to the R.A.F. who flew over 1 000 sorties.
On the Axis side, the command structure was temporarily upset by the disappearance of Stumme, who went forward to see for himself what was happening. His body was not found until the following day. General von Thoma, commander of the Afrika Korps, took over, and that evening reported to Berlin that he had contained the British penetration with an anti-tank screen. Thoma's confidence confirmed what Montgomery had refused to admit in pre-battle planning: that the Axis defences were too deep to be breached in a single night's work. When darkness fell it had only advanced well short of objectives with considerable loss of Sherman tanks and could go no further. In the Southern Corridor, sappers went forward at dusk to gap the minefield. They found more mines and took far longer to clear passable gaps than they had hoped. In consequence, the leading armoured units were held up in their assembly areas, presenting attractive targets to enemy aircraft. At about 22 00 hours one Luftwaffe aircraft unloaded its bombs, possibly by chance, on these crowded vehicles, setting some on fire. The conflagration attracted every enemy gun within range and dislocated the efforts to gain a passage of the minefields.
Major-General de Guingand, Montgomery's chief of staff, realised the gravity of the situation and decided to awake Montgomery who listened to what his corps commanders had to say. Both believed that the battle had gone so wrong that it should be broken off before heavier losses were sustained. Their pleas fell on determinedly deaf ears. Montgomery reaffirmed his earlier orders that the armour was to break out. If his armoured commanders were not prepared to obey, he would find others who would.
This was the psychological turning point in the British army's affairs and the first critical battle decision. Previous Eighth Army commanders would have flinched from giving such an order for fear of repeating the unreasoning obstinacy that World War One commanders had shown. Montgomery did not hesitate. He believed, like Churchill, that war was a battle of wills not only between opposing commanders but also between a commander and his subordinates. The leading elements did manage to fight their way through the minefields, but, as had been feared, were driven back by unsubdued anti-tank guns. This adverse tactical outcome of the night's work was irrelevant to the main issue: Montgomery had shown who was master. His corps and divisional generals knew where they stood. Alamein would be fought to the limits of endurance by the British as well as the Germans. The initial phase had not gone according to plan. The dogfight would have to start with the armoured divisions amongst instead of in front of the infantry.
Montgomery intended to start the crumbling process with an attack south-westwards whilst probing forward from the Northern Corridor to engage enemy tanks. During the morning a sense of frustration an