This was a not inconsiderable number of men and required a great deal of organization from the start. Moreover, as the campaign developed, the numbers increased, not only by the addition of GSI staff, but also through significant growth in signals personnel, the defence troops, whose numbers proved to be inadequate early in the campaign, the Field Security section, which was enlarged in preparation for entering Germany, and engineers, who had to clear mines in hostile territory. The transport personnel grew commensurately. On the other hand, the numbers at the end of May 1944 included 26 Americans, most of whom departed elsewhere at the end of August.

Tac was designed to be highly mobile. This placed a heavy burden on both Odgers, who was responsible for training it before deployment to France and became its de facto chief organizer for most of the campaign thereafter, and Bill Woodward, the Camp Commandant, who had to set up and manage new sites with great frequency. The former devised the standing orders for moving to a new site. Following the selection of the general area, a relatively small ‘recce party’ of about forty, with representatives from all the Tac HQ groups, including at least one of Monty’s ADCs, and fuel and supplies for three days, would set off in advance to choose the specific location. Woodward would then supervise the marking out of the perimeter, the entrances, the internal tracks and the position of every group, with its messes, latrines, water points and vehicle park. Only when this task was complete would a signal be sent for the main party to move. Once it arrived, the camp could be set up in 45 minutes.

The layout of the camp was subject to local geography but remained broadly the same wherever it was located, other than in buildings. The C-in-C’s camp was situated about 100 yards from G (Ops) and had its own entrance. The Signals Office was on the main track axis, midway between the main entrance and G (Ops), with the Cipher Office and W/T vehicles nearby. The Camp Office was next to the main entrance, with the Transport Office and main vehicle park adjoining it. The defence troops were based in the same area, but deployed as appropriate.

Accommodation was provided on the same basis as Main HQ, with a mixture of caravans and tents for sleeping and caravans, specialized vehicles and tents for offices. There were two officers’ messes, one for Monty and the five members of his personal staff, to which certain visiting personnel from Main HQ belonged in an honorary capacity, notably Freddie, Graham, Belchem and Williams, and to which the most distinguished visitors were also invited. The B mess, for all other officers and most visitors, was located in the G (Ops) area and the sergeants’ mess in the Camp area.

Of the seven caravans at Tac, two were reserved for senior members of Main HQ and distinguished visitors, one was occupied by Dawnay and one by the Colonel GS. The remaining three were for Monty.⁴ The longest serving of these was the one he had inherited from Auchinleck when he arrived at Eighth Army. It was of Italian manufacture and had originally belonged to General Bergonzoli, nicknamed ‘Electric Whiskers’ for his luxuriant beard, who had been captured in Operation COMPASS in early 1941. It had served as Monty’s home from Egypt to Tunisia and was now used as his office. In it he kept a signed photo of Rommel and photos of Field Marshals Von Runstedt, Model and Kesselring, his opponents in North-West Europe, which he would study in an attempt to understand what sort of men they were.

The second caravan was also of Italian manufacture and had been captured at the end of the North African campaign, when Monty moved very smartly to secure it against the rival claim of Freyberg. It had been occupied immediately beforehand by Marshal Messe, the Axis commander in Tunisia, but Monty was assured by him that it had previously been used by Rommel. Luxuriously appointed and including a bath, it became his bedroom. He would give it up only to the King or the Prime Minister.

Monty’s third caravan was used as his map room. He had felt the need for one in the earlier campaigns, but had never satisfied it. On arrival back in England, his personal staff approached the British Trailer Company, which agreed to manufacture a caravan to their specifications before presenting it to Monty as a gift. It contained a large map on the wall on which was marked the latest information on both the 21st Army Group and enemy positions. It was here that he received the reports of his liaison officers every night on their return from the front.

Other than Dawnay, Warren and Lieutenant Colonel Miller, the Senior US LO, the officers at Tac were all of relatively junior rank, majors and below. Monty would have been quite happy to leave it this way, but Freddie was insistent that there should be a more senior officer in overall command. He selected Colonel Leo Russell, who had been Belchem’s British deputy during the planning phase and was now spare. Freddie, as always, was concerned that he should know everything that was going on at Tac; this had worked reasonably well with John Oswald, Dick Vernon and Bill Mather, but with a much larger Tac and one which was expected to be at times even further away from Main than in the Eighth Army days, he wanted his own man on the spot.

Russell was not a regular soldier but a Territorial, whose background was in newspaper publishing. He had held a number of staff appointments in Home Forces, but had no operational experience. Odgers liked him, but others, particularly the livelier liaison officers and ADCs, thought him rather officious. His somewhat abrasive personality, combined with a lack of battlefield knowhow, meant that he found it difficult to earn their respect.

Planning for Tac was completed on 20 April, and on 26 April it moved to Southwick, where it established itself in a corner of the park close to Broomfield House, where Monty, Freddie and their aides slept and messed. Odgers, who was just back from honeymoon, now organized a series of movement exercises, first on the South Downs at nearby Horndean and then further afield at Crawley and Petworth. These were full-scale operations involving the whole of Tac in closing down, moving and setting up on a new site, followed by the whole procedure in reverse, and they proved invaluable in identifying the problems involved.

‘In the midst of these activities,’ wrote Odgers later, ‘the Liaison Staff began to arrive. Few will forget the sense of a great wind blowing and the place suddenly jammed with Jeeps, trailers, 2½ ton trucks and steel helmeted Americans.’⁵ No longer would Monty’s personal LOs be few in number and frequently supplemented by his ADCs. The nine officers would all have no other responsibilities but to keep ‘Master’ fully informed as to what was going on in his command on a daily basis.

There were some familiar faces among the newly arrived ‘Monty Boys’, for old Eighth Army hands at least. John Poston returned after his course at the Middle East Staff College, whilst Carol Mather, fully recovered from his incarceration and escape, was summoned by Monty to Claridge’s to be told that, if he took the job, his chances of survival were not good, an approach guaranteed to persuade him to join. The LO with the longest connection to Monty, however, was ‘Fuzzy’ Sanderson, his ADC at the outbreak of war. Back with his regiment, the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, Sanderson had seen action in 78 Division in Sicily and Italy, during which he had been awarded the MC. He had been on the same course as Poston in Haifa when both received invitations to join Monty, Sanderson as the result of a letter he had written enquiring about possible opportunities in 21st Army Group. They returned to the UK together, but not before enjoying a riotous few days in Cairo. Sanderson was hopeful of leave, but was told by Monty that he had to stay for one of Odgers’s exercises first.

The other new arrivals were Dick Harden, a contemporary of Sanderson’s at Sandhurst who had served as a tank officer in the desert, Dudley Bourhill and four Americans, of whom only two were to remain with Monty after 12th Army Group was created. They were Maurice Frary and Eddie Prisk, both of whom lasted to the end of the war. They were notable for wearing their helmets at all times, unlike their British confrères, who very rarely bothered. This was a strict American regulation, and Frary nearly got caught out when Patton made a surprise visit to Tac, disappearing with some alacrity to get properly dressed.

The primary task of the LOs before D-Day was to establish contacts with the armies, corps and divisions with which they would be liaising during the campaign. These would include not only the various staff officers, but also the GOCs, as Monty had made it quite clear that his LOs should have access to them at all times and that they were to provide answers to any questions that were asked, regardless of the differences in rank. This required a hectic bout of activity across Southern England. It also, in the run-up to the end of May, provided cover for a plan devised by Poston, who was already becoming something of a leader among the ‘Monty Boys’, partly because of his attractive character and partly because he knew exactly how far it was possible to go with the C-in-C. Poston proposed a last lightning tour of all the formations, which received official blessing, but was in fact a ploy to allow the LOs to make final pre-invasion visits to their families and sweethearts. It was agreed that on the last day they should rendezvous at Liphook before going on to Brighton for a night out. All went to plan, except that Mather’s jeep was stolen during dinner. It contained all Poston’s kit, but whilst he was not at all worried by that, he was mortified by the loss of all the letters from his girlfriend.

Monty had one other Personal Liaison Officer, but he was not based at Tac HQ, although he was a frequent visitor. Tom Bigland was a gunner who had served as a battery commander and second-in-command of an anti-tank regiment in the desert, winning a DSO, before going to the staff college at Haifa, where he was a contemporary of Dick Harden. He had subsequently been an instructor at the Junior Staff School at Sarafand, before being selected for a course at the US Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. On his arrival back in the UK, he was initially appointed a Liaison Officer for 21st Army Group with Second Army, before being sent as Monty’s LO with Bradley, probably on the strength of his recently acquired knowledge of the very different American staff system. Administratively he was subordinate to Llewellyn at Main HQ and all his reports went there as well as to Tac, but he was regarded as a ‘Monty Boy’. He would fulfil his role with Bradley for the rest of the war in circumstances which would become increasingly difficult and require great skills of diplomacy.

On 2 June Monty gathered all the officers of Main and Tac HQs on the lawn at Southwick House. He spoke about the war in general, how it had developed to that point and what the task of the Allied armies was now to be. As usual, it was a model of clarity. Mather later described the end of his address:

For a moment, after he had finished speaking, time stood still as minds dwelt on the enormity of the task, whilst Monty intoned the words of Montrose.

He either fears his fate too much,

Or his deserts are small,

That will not put it to the touch,

To win or lose it all.⁶

Then everyone burst out cheering and we knew we were going to win.⁷

There was to be no repeat of Operation HUSKY, for which Tac had not been pre-loaded and arrived late in Sicily, or even BAYTOWN, when it crossed to Italy over three days. Under cover of yet another movement exercise, substantially the whole of Tac moved to a marshalling area on the morning of 3 June and began to load on to three Landings Ships at Gosport the next morning. That afternoon the little flotilla sailed out into the Solent to await the signal to cross to France. Like the other tens of thousands of men on ships all around, their expectation had been that the invasion would take place on 5 June, but the weather was terrible, and it was delayed until the following day and only occurred then after a courageous decision by Eisenhower, strongly supported by Monty.

Tac had been split for the crossing. The element in LST 377, under Russell, was operationally independent, whilst those in LSTs 378 and 379, respectively under Odgers and Warren, were supposed to operate together. The plan was for all the ships to transfer vehicles and men on to Rhino ferries some way out from Juno beach, but attempts to do so failed initially and it was not until the afternoon of D+1 that LST 377 managed to unload in this way. LST 379 succeeded that evening, but LST 378 became stuck on a sandbank and had to wait for the tide to carry it in early on D+2. The disruption caused by the separation of the two interdependent groups proved to be only temporary and the personnel all came ashore safely, but there was one disaster when the lorry carrying the contents of the officers’ and sergeants’ messes, including the supply of Scotch whisky, slid off its ship into the sea!

At the head of the first group ashore, Russell set up camp on what turned out to be a highly unsuitable site at St Croix-sur-Mer, exposed to enemy shellfire and so close to the beaches that it was surrounded by the chaos of troops trying to move inland. Warren, in the meantime, had been on the lookout for a better location and had found just the place in the grounds of the Chateau de Creullet, near the village of Creully. It was actually closer to the front line, but was not a particular target for enemy artillery and was satisfactory in most other ways. Madame de Douval, the wife of the owner, ‘a dubious ex-cavalry aristocrat’ according to Odgers, seemed pleased to see them, her previous guests, some German officers, having departed in haste very recently! A number of German soldiers⁸ were discovered in the outbuildings and taken prisoner by Warren, Mather and Sanderson at pistol point, but once the grounds were pronounced clear, preparations began for Monty’s arrival.

Monty stayed at Broomfield during the daylight hours of D-Day, but was sufficiently satisfied by the news of progress on and beyond the beaches to sail as planned for France that night. Leaving Dawnay behind with a small rear party to ensure that communications with Main HQ were satisfactory and taking Henderson and BonDurant with him, he embarked on the destroyer HMS Faulknor, which weighed anchor at 22.00. At first light the next morning Henderson went up to the bridge, only to be told by the captain that they were lost. Monty remained sanguine and, having taken directions from a passing American battleship, the destroyer came back on course. Henderson was sent across to Bradley’s command ship to invite the US commander to meet Monty. The American had satisfactory news about Utah Beach, but reported serious problems on Omaha, where huge casualties had been incurred and the beachhead was much smaller than planned. Monty decided to attach BonDurant to him as a temporary liaison officer until the situation improved. There was an encouraging report from Dempsey, who also came on board, and later in the day Monty himself went to see Eisenhower and Ramsay on the latter’s flagship, by that time expressing confidence that all was well, following a signal from Bradley that his troops were at last making good progress inland from Omaha.

Early on the morning of 8 June, the destroyer moved towards shore, going aground as she did so, but Monty and Henderson were picked up by Chavasse in a DUKW. Taken initially to Russell’s first choice of Tac HQ site at St Croix, Monty immediately pronounced it unsuitable, but the alternative at Creully was now available and Tac was fully located there during the day. Second Army and Broadhurst’s 83 Group RAF both subsequently established their HQs nearby.

By this time the LOs had already been in action for 24 hours. Sanderson had been given the furthest British formation to visit, 6 Airborne Division on the left flank beyond Pegasus Bridge. The Sword beachhead had not joined up with those of Gold and Juno and he experienced a strange feeling of emptiness over part of the route, which turned out to be exactly where 21 Panzer Division was attempting to drive a wedge towards the sea. His visit to the divisional HQ was rudely interrupted when it had to withdraw at short notice to avoid being overrun, and on the return journey he experienced the same sensation that he had earlier, but encountered no Germans.

The LOs quickly settled into a routine which would continue until the end of the campaign. Some departed very early for their chosen divisions or corps, from where they would send a signal to Tac on the previous night’s operations, which would be marked up on in the map in Monty’s map caravan by the Duty Operations Officer, ready to brief him at 07.30. Others remained behind for the briefing and specific orders before leaving, whilst one always remained at Tac on a roster for duty in the map room. Those travelling by road carried special passes giving them priority of movement through traffic. The LOs would spend the day covering the chosen formations, which always included each Allied army, corps and division in action and occasionally those due to go into action, calling on the senior staff and the formation commander. They would return in the evening and report verbally to Odgers for the map to be marked up again, following which they would each be debriefed in turn by Monty in the map caravan. A short handwritten report was also completed. Save for a period immediately after the landings when the some of the LOs had to use motorcycles, they travelled mostly in jeeps, with a driver and a signaller with a No. 19 wireless set, and they carried chinagraph boards on which they could write cryptic notes and draw rough maps and which could be wiped very quickly in an emergency. Otherwise everything remained in the LOs’ heads and no papers were involved, a contrast to the LOs sent out by American formations, who carried documents in sealed envelopes.

The LOs were instructed to deal directly with corps and divisional commanders and, in their absence, with their senior general staff officer. Most commanders understood that they came with the express authority of Monty and seldom stood on the significant difference in rank between the LOs and themselves, although some LOs encountered irritation or even mild hostility. The American LOs had the most difficult time as the US system, with orders being conveyed in writing down through a relatively rigid, albeit effective, chain of command, did not always adapt well to Monty’s requirements.

Monty himself was out visiting formations and units on most days, always returning to Tac by 17.00. Accompanied by one of his personal staff, he would normally use his Humber Tourer staff car, a four-seater open vehicle with a soft top for wet weather. If he wanted to impress he would be driven in one of his two Rolls Royce Wraiths, whilst for journeys deemed to be dangerous he had a converted Staghound armoured car. On most trips to active formations he was accompanied by another armoured car from the Tac HQ troop.

Monty had to remain in camp for VIP visits, which began very quickly at Creully. The first of these was by Churchill, Brooke and Field Marshal Smuts on 12 June, which went off without a hitch as did those by the King and Sir James Grigg, the Secretary of State for War, four and six days later respectively. General de Gaulle, who proved to be a much more awkward proposition, arrived on 14 June. Sanderson was released from LO duties to escort him, with strict instructions that the French leader should be accompanied by no more than three other officers, should have no ceremonial welcome and no flags and should leave again by 16.00. De Gaulle arrived late and with a large retinue. He was dismayed by the transport, consisting only of Sanderson’s jeep, and insisted on displaying the French flag, for which a makeshift piece of driftwood was tied to the windscreen. Three other jeeps had to be requisitioned for the rest of the party.

Matters then got worse. In Sanderson’s words, ‘The meeting between Monty and de Gaulle could hardly have been more frigid.’⁹ There was no guard of honour at Tac, as expected by de Gaulle, and Monty, already displeased at being kept waiting, ordered him to extinguish his cigarette. The meeting itself was brief and the lunch frugal. As part of the itinerary, de Gaulle went on to Bayeux, where he made a speech to the bemused residents. Sanderson was subsequently dismissive of de Gaulle’s appeal to the crowd, describing it as lacking fervour, but Lieutenant Colonel Lewthwaite, GSO1 (Ops) at Main HQ, who was also present on a visit to the front, reported that there was no doubt about the general’s popularity, although attempts to accompany the Marseillaise on a gramophone had proved ludicrous! Anxious to have him back on the beach according to the agreed schedule, Sanderson was dismayed to be ordered instead to proceed to Isigny, some way to the west in the American sector, where de Gaulle made another speech. At last he agreed to return to the beach, where Sanderson was told that Monty had been asking where he was. He returned to Tac HQ to tell the whole story; Monty was furious, but not with his LO.

The day before Churchill’s visit a lone German soldier had been discovered hiding in the grounds of the chateau, frightened and hungry. This, together with fears expressed by Freddie to Russell about the possibility of an airborne raid by German paratroopers, and the absolute disregard by Monty himself for his own safety, led to the defence troops being significantly increased, largely by Commandos. The security at Creully had also been compromised by some injudicious reporting of the King’s visit in the British press, and it may not have been a coincidence that Tac was shelled not long afterwards, albeit with no casualties; Monty himself rejected completely a suggestion by Henderson that he should take shelter in a slit trench. The location now looked less than optimal, both for this reason and because the expansion of the American bridgehead into the Cotentin Peninsula had shifted the centre of gravity to the west. It was therefore decided to move it to Blay, a village well away from the front, west of Bayeux and north of the Forest of Cerisy, but more importantly on the boundary between the Americans and British armies. The move took place on 23 June.

Tac was now working exactly as Monty wanted, the arrival of Dawnay and the rear party, together with his Roll-Royces, having completed the establishment. The C-in-C had legitimate grounds for satisfaction. The lodgement in Normandy had gone well, with the Allied armies now consolidated ashore with a continuous front and unlikely to be thrust back into the sea. To the surprise of all, Operation FORTITUDE was continuing to hold major German forces in the Pas-de-Calais. Reinforcements and supplies had been seriously disrupted by a major storm in the English Channel, but were expected to come back on schedule shortly. Cherbourg was about to fall.

There was, however, one rather large fly in the ointment. Caen, which the planners had anticipated would fall on D-Day itself, was still firmly in the hands of the Germans.

 

* See Appendix V.