Monty's Success Not Ultra's (9 April 1976)
One of my old bosses died a week or two ago. He was the only public figure I ever felt like wearing a black tie for. His name, or rather his nickname, was Monty.
Since the war Monty’s reputation has been much nibbled at by military historians and others of that ilk. So far as I am concerned they might as well try to gnaw a hole through HMS Victory. They will have no more effect. I knew all his failings long ago, but I also knew his titanic strengths.
Monty’s triumphs were forged in the fires of defeat. At the time of the French collapse, he was only a divisional commander and Alan Brooke was his corps commander. Yet, had it not been for their skill and endurance there would have nobody left for the little boats to pick up at Dunkirk. Monty was among the last to get away. That is why some of their superiors were sacked and why they themselves were suddenly promoted – Brooke to C in C, Home Command, and Monty to chief of the then vital Southern Command.
At that time I was a civvy and I remember asking some of the returning soldiers if they thought we could win, now that we were on our own. They looked at me in astonishment. “Of course we can,” they said. “Jerry ain’t all that wonderful when you meet him face to face.” I could only hope they were right.
I don’t know what Monty thought of the prospects. I guess he was too busy, though he must have gained something from such confidence at the grass roots. High Command might or might not have received a shake-up. Southern Command certainly did under Monty.
A non-smoking, non-drinking puritan of almost Cromwellian zeal, he was a fanatic for fitness and military efficiency. He was here, there and everywhere. Units previously unknown in the British Army were set up as a result of the pre-Dunkirk experience and in due course I was (in) one in Southern Command, with Monty still in charge. In fact I was No.7 in a new “trade” that eventually numbered thousands.
Monty was hard and unrelenting with his army of ex-civvies, as he had to be. But unlike most commanders back to the time of Wellington, he made the supreme point of being known to as many of his men as possible. And he treated everybody alike. Thus, when he ordered rigorous and regular PT for all, he meant for everybody from colonels down and not just for the likes of yours truly.
Compared with him, all other commanders were vague figures seen only in newspaper photographs.
Eventually Monty left for Egypt. There he seems to have followed exactly the same course of identifying himself with his men as quickly as he could. He had seen the awful squandering of lives in the first world war and he assured his men that he would try not to risk lives unnecessarily.
After Alamein their confidence in him knew no bounds. He has been criticised for not following up that victory more speedily. But he had lost a lot of tanks in the battle and there was still the possibility of an attack on his base from across the sea – a possibility that had been such a bogy to other commanders before him. Besides which, the Japanese were now in the war and his many Australian and New Zealand troops were naturally becoming worried about the rapidly increasing threat to their homelands. Anybody can win campaigns by hindsight.
It was in North Africa, I think, that Monty took to wearing his famous two-badged beret. For this he has been called a show-off. Nothing of the kind.
The British Army did not start the war with berets. They were first introduced for special units like the commandos, airborne troops and the Tank Corps. Monty tried a tanks’ one and found it comfy and serviceable. In honour of a corps which had served him so well, he did not deprive the beret of its badge. He simply added the generals’ badge.
He was setting no precedent. The Gloucesters had always worn two badges on their forage caps one fore and aft – a privilege granted following an ancient famous occasion when the regiment had fought back-to-back.
Monty followed his course of being at one with his men right through Sicily, Italy, Normandy and Northern France. As one of his former infantrymen once said to me in casual conversation in Bletchley: “Monty was the greatest. If he said a job was going to be easy it turned out a piece of cake, and if he said it was going to be sticky, then mama’s little boy had better watch out.”
Actually, I consider that towards the end of the war Monty’s faith in his crack troops had reached the stage where he thought they could somehow achieve the impossible. However, it was to the British general, Monty, that the enemy in Western Europe finally surrendered.
Today we’re being told that Monty’s successes were not, in the first instance, due to Monty at all, but to information supplied by Bletchley Park’s Ultra unit. I think they can tell that to the marines.
When the Ultra story first broke, the question that came thunderingly to mind was: then why all those nasty surprises? The reply implied that on those occasions the general, admiral or air commander concerned had chosen to ignore Ultra’s information.
And now comes a further complication in a statement from another quarter that sometimes Ultra’s information was not even sent out by the supreme authorities in London because to have done so would have made the enemy aware of Ultra’s existence. Coventry is cited as an instance. If that is so then Ultra was a two-edged sword to end all two-edged swords.
But whether it is true or not, Ultra must have seemed to commanders to be an inconsistent bird, one not to be trusted implicitly without corroborative information. If that other information contradicted Ultra’s, the commander was then on his own. Besides which, in radio communications, there is always the chance that the secret has been penetrated by an enemy who is wily enough never to make the penetration obvious.
The Ultra story itself, as now told by various writers, is full of contradictions. But all say that the last secret has not yet been revealed. Let us hope it clears up the mess.
Meanwhile, farewell Monty, sir; I am glad at being able to pay you these humble last respects.
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