Following the conference on 21 January Monty spent a minimal amount of time on planning, content to leave the detail to his staff. There were still some fundamental issues to be resolved, notably the US insistence on Operation ANVIL. After considerable debate, it proved impossible for Churchill, Brooke, Monty and others to change the Americans’ minds, but at least it was delayed until mid-August under the new name of Operation DRAGOON, allowing sufficient landing craft to be available for the NEPTUNE phase of OVERLORD. In the meantime D-Day for OVERLORD was also put back by a month from early May to 5 June.
Eisenhower and Monty held regular weekly conferences at Norfolk House and St Paul’s, but Monty otherwise spent much of his time travelling the country to meet not only the formations and units of Second Army and First Canadian Army, but also those of First US Army, which would come under his command until the land forces were divided between 12th US and 21st Army Groups. Just as importantly for the purposes of morale, he also took the time to address the workers in the factories, ports and dockyards whose contribution was vital to the invasion. For these journeys he had the use of a train, formerly allocated to Paget. ‘Rapier’ comprised four carriages, refurbished as offices, meeting rooms, sleeping accommodation and mess facilities, together with a covered flat car for Monty’s Rolls Royce or one of his other vehicles. Other than the locomotive crew, it was staffed entirely by the military, with the management under a formidable ATS NCO, Sergeant Gouk, to whom Monty warmed immediately. He was usually accompanied only by members of his personal staff, taking Warren and BonDurant with him when visiting, respectively, the Canadians and the Americans. On one occasion he was joined by his son David, who wore his school OTC uniform as the train was off-limits to civilians.
On the whole, Monty’s visits were very well received by both servicemen and workers, but there were occasions when his approach to the former, which was to get up on the bonnet of a jeep, gather the assembled troops around him and then tell them very plainly what their role would be, did not go entirely to plan. This was particularly true of some of the formations and units withdrawn from the Mediterranean, who were most unhappy that they were being asked to take the brunt of the action yet again. The Americans were generally more sceptical about the message than the British and often foxed by Monty’s accent, but were nevertheless amazed that someone so senior should come to meet them.
Monty decided that he should use some of the time he necessarily spent in London having his portrait painted, and Dawnay, who knew the artist Augustus John, arranged for sittings to take place. Monty did not hit it off with John, disapproving of his personal habits and his very evident attachment to the fairer sex, and he insisted that Dawnay attend all the sittings. These were at least enlivened on one occasion by the presence of George Bernard Shaw, with whom Monty formed an instant rapport. On the other hand, when the portrait was completed, he disliked it intensely and refused to accept it. John was delighted and sold it for much more than the sitter’s fee commanded!
Dawnay was also asked to provide a number of interesting guests for the C-in-C’s mess, so that Monty could take his mind off purely military matters. He managed to invite an eclectic selection, which included Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour in the Coalition Government, with whom Monty got on famously, and Dr Hewlett Johnson, the ‘Red Dean’ of Canterbury, who was vociferously supportive of the Soviet Union and the Red Army, only to be silenced by an interjection from Mrs Churchill, another of the guests. One of Monty’s favourites was his old friend, A. P. Herbert, the independent MP for Oxford University. Herbert was seemingly as unlike Monty as it was possible to be, a humorist who contributed regularly to Punch, a columnist for the Sunday Mirror, a novelist and a playwright, but he was highly entertaining, responding gleefully to Monty’s provocations. He had served in the Royal Navy during the Great War and had rejoined in 1940 as a Petty Officer, whose uniform he invariably wore. He was to appear not only at St Paul’s but on a number of occasions at Tac HQ in the field.
Freddie was in control at St Paul’s during Monty’s absences, chairing a full scale staff conference at the beginning of each day, whose attendees included not only the heads of branches, but also more junior officers. He was the ultimate arbiter on all decisions and would give out his orders at the end of each conference: as always, most of these were verbal to cut out any unnecessary paperwork. He also attended inter-service staff meetings, which were chaired in turn by him and his Royal Navy and RAF opposite numbers, Rear Admiral George Creasy and Air Vice Marshal Philip Wigglesworth. He had a particularly close association with the former, both Creasy and Admiral Ramsay sleeping and messing at Latymer Court whenever they were in London.
As had been the case in the closing stages of his time in Italy, Freddie was overworking and occasionally showed sign of stress. Monty was concerned and asked Llewellyn to report to him if the Chief of Staff became too sick to carry out his duties. This was never necessary, but there were a number of occasions on which the blue light outside his office was switched on, signifying that entry was not permitted, usually because Freddie was catching up on some much needed sleep.
In terms of planning, Freddie, Belchem and the staff were responsible for thoroughly evaluating the work carried out by COSSAC, amending it where necessary and then ensuring the detailed implementation of the resulting plan by the formations in 21st Army Group. The order of battle for both the landings and the follow-up had to be decided and then communicated to BUCO, the allocation of landing craft and targets for shore bombardment agreed with the Royal and US Navies, and both ground/air support and the airborne operations coordinated with the RAF and USAAF. Other issues included the optimum use of the specialized armoured vehicles operated by 79 Armoured Division and the eventual deployment of the MULBERRY harbours and the PLUTO pipeline. There were numerous engineering problems, including the handling of the obstacles expected on the beaches. The involvement of Inglis, who had been considering many of these from the inception of 21st Army Group, now proved invaluable.
Nearly 300 American officers and other ranks were attached to Main HQ, spread over all the staff branches, and they included a team of planners led by Colonel Charles ‘Tic’ Bonesteel, who had been involved in invasion planning from as early as 1942. One of Bonesteel’s specific tasks was to study the topography of Normandy, and he drew attention particularly to the ‘bocage’ country to the south of the invasion beaches, characterized by small fields, each of which was enclosed by high banks and hedgerows. He pointed out that this country was ideal for defence, particularly against tanks. This was picked up by Richardson and his planners in their appreciations of how the campaign might develop and subsequently proved to be a serious factor, impacting adversely on both the British and the Americans.
During the planning process an event took place which seemed at first to represent a disastrous lapse of security. At Main HQ there was only one map showing all the invasion beaches and the forces designated to land on them. It was kept in Belchem’s office, could only be taken out against the signature of a senior officer and was locked away at night. One day it went missing and there was no signature to indicate where it might be. Colonel Leo Russell, Belchem’s British deputy, went through Main HQ with a toothcomb, whilst Belchem himself did the same thing at Norfolk House, but to no avail. It seemed all too possible that OVERLORD had been gravely compromised. After twenty-four hours Freddie told Belchem that he would have to call in Scotland Yard if it was not found quickly, but soon afterwards there was a call from Russell to say that it had been located in the draughtsman’s cupboard, to Belchem’s huge relief.
Whilst most of the planning staff were considering the problems associated with getting ashore in Normandy and establishing a strong beachhead, Williams and his staff were hard at work estimating the strength of the opposition, their estimate proving in due course to be remarkably accurate. It was well known by then that Rommel, once again Monty’s opponent, had been busy strengthening the defences of the Atlantic Wall, and Monty’s initial feeling was that he would hold back his reserves for a counter-attack until he was clear about where the main effort of the Allies was directed. Williams was not so sure, believing that the German commander was likely to attack vigorously at the first opportunity to drive the invaders into the sea, an assessment to which Monty rapidly subscribed. He and his team also, not long before D-Day, identified the German Army’s 352 Division moving into position opposite Omaha Beach, but somehow this intelligence never reached First US Army.
If the Allied Intelligence services were devoting most of their time to establishing who would oppose them when they landed, the Germans were even more desperate to know who would be coming and where. In order to throw them off the scent, a multi-faceted deception operation was put in place. Operation FORTITUDE was one of the most complex of its kind during the war, and one of the most successful. Its objective was to lead the Germans to believe that the main invasion would not take place in Normandy, but in the Pas-de-Calais, and would be accompanied by a secondary landing in Norway. FORTITUDE SOUTH created a fictitious formation, 1st US Army Group or FUSAG, commanded by Patton and located in the South-East of England, the threat of which would hopefully hold the German Fifteenth Army in the Pas-de-Calais area for as long as possible. FORTITUDE NORTH was designed to deter the Germans from sending reinforcements from Norway to France.
The overall coordination of FORTITUDE was in the hands of a secret organization, the London Controlling Section. The LCS used double agents1 to feed snippets of intelligence to the Germans which were trifling in themselves and not connected with each other, but which taken all together built up into a convincing story. It also leaked information through neutral diplomatic channels which it knew would find its way back to Berlin and which would corroborate the story. FORTITUDE SOUTH was designed to support this, and a major element, codenamed QUICKSILVER, was placed under the control of SHAEF, which passed it on to 21st Army Group. As no one else in the UK had the requisite experience of deception, Monty put Strangeways in charge, with orders to mobilize all the resources of G (R) and R Force. Strangeways now devoted most of his time to this, not only at Main HQ, but also on trips around South-East England and East Anglia.
There were several strands to QUICKSILVER. One was the creation and location of dummy installations, vehicles, aircraft and landing craft. The last, codenamed BIGBOBS, were the most important, flotillas of them being assembled in harbours and river mouths north and south of the Thames Estuary. By this time the Air Defence of Great Britain was so successful that few Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft overflew the South of England, but the Germans were able to take oblique photos from about fifteen miles from the coast, which were sufficient to show any vessels in harbour. Strangeways made the point that it would be all very well to let them see the BIGBOBS, but they would not be fooled unless these were moored close to hards from which troops and vehicles could board, so these now had to be constructed.
Even more critical to success was the radio traffic created by R Force’s No. 5 Wireless Group, supported by 3103 US Signals Service Battalion. The former had the use of a device whereby one transmitter could replicate six others, so that the signals of a division and all its brigades could be sent from a single truck. The latter had the capacity to replicate the signals of an army group HQ, an army, three corps and nine divisions. A programme was devised to simulate the wireless traffic of FUSAG and all its supposed formations and units.
Another strand of QUICKSILVER was the air plan. Strangeways insisted that there should be two reconnaissance flights over the Pas-de-Calais for every one over Normandy and that much of the bombing, carried out in accordance with the Allied Air Forces’ Transportation Plan to destroy the German transport network in France, should also be focused on the former.
Monty was personally involved in another deception exercise, although it failed to have the same impact as FORTITUDE. Operation COPPERHEAD was an attempt to persuade the Germans that he was out of the country only a week or so before D-Day and that the invasion was thus still some way off. An officer in MI5 had noticed a similarity between Monty and Lieutenant M. E. Clifton James, an actor some twelve years younger than Monty who was serving in the Royal Army Pay Corps. A plan was hatched to send him to the Mediterranean in the hope that this might suggest that an invasion of Southern France was imminent. Clifton James was allowed to tail Monty for a few days in early May to pick up his speech and mannerisms and then to spend some time alone with him on Rapier. On 26 May, ten days before D-Day was due, he landed in Gibraltar and was very visibly seen with the Governor. He then flew on to Algiers where he met Jumbo Wilson but unfortunately allowed his alcoholic intake to get the better of him, and the operation was closed down. There is evidence that the Germans were alerted, but none that it made any difference to their dispositions.
At the time of the meeting with Clifton James, Monty was in Scotland, about to take a short holiday. He had spent much of the previous month observing a series of exercises undertaken by 21st Army Group formations around the British Isles and had led one of his own, Exercise THUNDERCLAP, at St Paul’s on 7 April. The members of the Chief of Staffs’ Committee attended, as did Eisenhower, whilst Churchill appeared after tea to give an uninspiring talk. Monty opened the conference with an impressive hour and a half’s introduction, followed by Ramsay, Leigh-Mallory, Bradley, who would be commanding First US Army for the invasion before moving up to 12th Army Group, Dempsey, who had been chosen by Monty to command Second Army, and their respective corps commanders. Apart from Churchill’s contribution, Brooke thought that it was ‘a wonderful day’.2
To illustrate his own presentation, Monty produced a map which he would live to regret. On it were drawn phase lines showing how the campaign was expected to develop over the first 90 days, by which time the Allied armies were expected to be on the Seine to the north and the Loire to the south. Belchem later attributed the requirement for these to the Americans, at the specific request of his American deputy, Colonel Mudgett, but in fact they were drawn for Monty by Dawnay, who subsequently explained:
The first line I wrote covered the beachheads and showed them linked up together. The final line covered the Seine, Paris and the Loire. I then asked Monty how I should draw the lines in between. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Shall I draw them equally then?’ I said. ‘Yes, that will do,’ said Monty.3
The lines would be used in due course by Monty’s detractors as evidence of his plan failing. In the meantime, far from insisting on phase lines, Bradley wanted them removed, at least in the American sector, as he had not been consulted in advance. Monty himself put little value on them at the time or later, and Richardson and others regarded them as an illustration rather than a commitment.
Monty’s Scottish holiday from 9 to 13 May provided his only extended spell of relaxation during the five months in the UK before D-Day. Rapier remained in a siding next to the distillery at Dalwhinnie, which was where Monty met Clifton-James. Other than Henderson, who organized daily excursions, he was accompanied only by his stepson, Dick Carver, who was about to command an RE field company for the invasion, Freddie, who Monty felt also deserved a break, and Dawnay. Gerry Feilden had a house nearby and joined them on occasion for picnics, but Monty’s main relaxation was fly-fishing, not a sport for which he had had much time in the past. He was totally unsuccessful, failing to land a single salmon, but enjoyed the experience nevertheless.
On 14 May Monty arrived back in London and on the following day the King, the Prime Minister, the Supreme Commander and all the other military leaders involved in OVERLORD gathered at St Paul’s for the final presentation of the plans. Eisenhower presided over the proceedings, but Monty was the first main speaker, giving yet another impressive address, outlining his own intentions, the expected dispositions and reactions of the Germans and the likely development of the battle in the first weeks. He was very clear that the British and Canadians would hold the left of the Allied line, attracting on to their front the enemy armoured divisions, which would be determined to prevent an advance to the Seine. The Americans, having fought their way through the bocage, would then break out towards the Loire and Brittany before wheeling round towards the Seine and Paris. If he left his listeners with one impression, it was of complete confidence in the Allies’ ultimate success.
By this time St Paul’s housed only Rear HQ, both Main and Tac having moved at the end of April to join the Naval HQ at Southwick House, just outside Portsmouth. There they were joined by the Advanced Command Post of SHAEF, Southwick becoming the nerve centre for the invasion. HQ Allied Expeditionary Air Force, however, remained at Stanmore. There had been numerous difficulties with the Air Forces during the planning. ‘Bomber’ Harris and his American counterpart, Carl Spaatz, had argued unsuccessfully that their bombers should not be diverted from the strategic bombing campaign in order to implement the Transportation Plan, whilst Leigh-Mallory became very nervous about the possibility of heavy casualties in the American airborne assault and had to be overruled by Eisenhower when he proposed to cancel it. To ensure that nothing more would go wrong, Monty sent Richardson to Stanmore to act as a personal liaison officer to Leigh-Mallory during the opening stages of the campaign.
Two days before 5 June 1944, which was still expected to be D-Day, Monty set out some thoughts on the previous five months in his diary. At the end he wrote this of his staff:
My own team at 21 Army Group is quite first-class.
I can say definitely that if I had not brought my own team of senior officers back with me from ITALY, I could never have done the business and got ready for the OVERLORD operation. It was essential to have practical knowledge on the job, with officers who know the battle end of the business; those that Paget had collected round him in ENGLAND were pure theorists and were mostly useless anyway. I like PAGET very much and he is a very old friend; but he is not a good judge as to what constitutes a high-class officer.4
That Monty was now backed by ‘high-class officers’ would be amply demonstrated by the events of the next eleven months.