AT SHIPYARD RICHMOND No. 2 in California, Clay Bedford had been a little bit sore to have been bested by Henry Kaiser’s son, Edgar. With this in mind, he had sent round a flyer to his workforce titled, ‘What’s Oregon Got That We Haven’t Got?’ In it, he asked for ideas about how Richmond might regain the record of the fastest-ever-built ocean-going ship. He received more than 250 letters and suggestions about how construction might be speeded up. And so they set themselves a new challenge: to build one in half the time of the ten-day miracle ship. Theirs would be the five-day vessel.
Construction began on 7 November, with all the parts already pre-assembled and the workforce working round the clock. Twenty-four hours on, the keel was laid and the shell of the hull welded. Forty-eight hours in, the engine had been installed and the upper deck finished. By the end of the third day, deckhouses and masts were in place and the ship was already looking pretty well done.
The fourth day was spent wiring, finishing off the welding and painting. Then, at 3.27 p.m. on 12 November, the latest Liberty ship, the Robert E. Peary – named after an intrepid American Arctic explorer – was launched into the sea. It had taken four days, fifteen hours and twenty-six minutes.
This was truly miraculous and was some solace for the shipping losses the Allies were to suffer that month. In all, 128 ships were sunk, 117 by U-boats, amounting to a staggering 802,160 tons, which was the first time Dönitz’s crew had managed to reach the magic 800,000-ton monthly target. It was a significant number of losses, but most were independents and stragglers, plying their trade primarily to the United States; the majority had been sunk in the south-east Atlantic and Caribbean, where too many ships were still travelling out of convoy.
Even so, thirty-nine had been sunk in the Atlantic, and most of those along the mid-Atlantic air gap, and that was a worry at a time in the war when there could be no let-up in the supply of war materiel to Britain and North Africa.
There were a number of reasons for this dramatic surge in sinkings. The first was technological. A new radar receiver had been developed in Germany called Metox. It was pretty crude, but gave U-boats warning of airborne metric wavelength radar. By the autumn it had become safe again for U-boats to operate on the surface. What’s more, new Ju88c long-range aircraft were getting the better of Allied planes operating over the Bay of Biscay, which meant that was a safer area for U-boats too. Metox was also able, however, to pick up transmissions of metric radar on ships. Most British escorts had long since done away with such old-school radar equipment, but not so the Canadians, and they were responsible for 35 per cent of the escorts operating in the mid-Atlantic.
From the moment the Royal Canadian Navy entered the Battle of the Atlantic, its ships and crews had been horribly over-stretched, and that was perhaps more the case than ever in the autumn of 1942, when so many British and US warships were involved in the TORCH landings and so not available for normal Atlantic escort duty. Lieutenant Dick Pearce was No. 1 on HMCS Arvida even though he was still only twenty-one and despite having only joined his first ship earlier in the year. The captain was also only a lieutenant. The strain on Pearce, his fellow officers and crew was immense. ‘In my year-plus in Arvida,’ he said, ‘I saw more sinkings and picked up more survivors than I can begin to count … The carnage was dreadful.’1
At one point, Arvida had the somewhat unwanted record of having picked up more men from the water than any other ship. Arvida was part of Escort Group C4 during Convoy ON127 when they ran into a large U-boat pack in the mid-Atlantic air gap on 10 September. Despite having ASDIC, it was not enough to sweep the entire convoy area at all times and before they knew it, U-96 had sunk three ships in broad daylight. The escorts began furiously sweeping the area, but only one of the ships had Huff-Duff and the set was defective. For four days the battle raged. Just after 2 a.m. on the 14th, the destroyer Ottawa was hit amidships by U-91 and blew up, the ship silhouetted against the night sky by the orange glow of the fire-burst, the air suddenly rich with the stench of smoke and explosives, like a particularly bad rotten egg. Ottawa went down almost immediately. Arvida hurried to the scene to look for survivors but steamed through a large group of them. By the time Dick Pearce and the officers on the bridge heard their cries it was too late to stop, so they had to make a large circle around and come back for them. By that time, the combination of the freezing water and suffocating film of oil had already killed a number of men. Several of Arvida’s crew took ropes and dived into the oily water to help the rescue. Nets were also thrown over the side. In all, Arvida and her fellow escort Celandine picked up only sixty-two of Ottawa’s crew and just seven men from Empire Oil, who had been saved earlier in the convoy when their ship had gone down. ‘It was a tragedy that haunted us all,’ said Pearce, who gave up both clothing and his sleeping space for the survivors.2 By the time Arvida finally reached port, they had over 150 on board a vessel designed for eighty-five. In all, ON127 had lost seven ships on that hellish run.
Experience and decent equipment, of course, made a massive difference, which was why during the entire autumn of 1942 Commander Donald Macintyre did not lose a single ship in convoy. For the embattled Canadians, however, continuing above and beyond the call of duty, more Huff-Duff was needed, and newer radar, and some slack taken from their overworked crews. This would come, but it was not there in October and November when escort carriers and other shipping was tied up with the TORCH landings.
Allied shipping could materially cope with these losses and, with Liberty ships being built with such astonishing rapidity, new boats were outnumbering those sunk, but a greater concern was for the crews. Winter had arrived and with it not just the fear of U-boats but also the perils of the cruel sea. The dreaded Arctic convoys had resumed as well now that summer was over. That more than 80 per cent of all convoys were getting through entirely unscathed and that only a tiny proportion of the total number of ships that sailed were being sunk did little to bolster the morale of crews who were repeatedly hacking back and forth across these terrifying seas. The thought that a U-boat might strike at any moment or that one might die a horrible and lonely death in the middle of the grey Atlantic worsened when large numbers of Allied ships were being sent to the bottom. Admiral Dönitz now wondered whether he could push merchant crews to the point of mutiny.
Something had to be done. Western Approaches Command had a new C-in-C. No one could doubt the achievements of Admiral Percy Noble since taking command back in 1940, but, as with the removal of Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding from RAF Fighter Command after the Battle of Britain, it was felt it was time for some new blood and fresh ideas. These were to come from Admiral Sir Max Horton, a submariner of exceptional experience and a man who was ideally placed to understand the mind of the U-boat commander. Full of drive and energy, he knew he had to inject some new ideas and new approaches into the Battle of the Atlantic and in quick order. Dönitz now had as many as ninety U-boats operating at one time; the technological gap had, in part, briefly closed; and winter was the best killing time for submarines. The weak links, Horton swiftly realized, were the mid-Atlantic air gap and the training and technological gap between the Royal Navy escorts and those of the Canadians. The outcome of the Atlantic battle was not in doubt – superior Allied production, technology and, for much of the time, intelligence ensured that – but suddenly it was threatening to set the Allies back, with a knock-on effect in all other theatres. That could not be allowed to happen. Somehow, then, both these issues had to be solved. And soon.
On 8 November, Henri Frenay had been in the midst of shaving when he was rung by Colonel Passy’s BCRAM headquarters to tell him the Allies had landed in French North Africa. The situation, he was told, was confused. Soon after, the telephone rang again. It was Sir Charles Hambro, one of the directors of SOE, who wanted to know whether Frenay would be willing to fly to Algiers that very night to try to build a bridge between Giraud and de Gaulle. Frenay replied that he would gladly go, but only if sanctioned by de Gaulle.
The Free French leader was having none of it, however. If Frenay was to go, it would be with others, as part of a delegation. ‘We must show Giraud that the French freedom fighters have formed a united front,’ de Gaulle told him, ‘that the Resistance and the Free French are marching in step under de Gaulle’s leadership.’3
When Frenay returned to his hotel, he rang Sir Charles Hambro. ‘Ahhh,’ came the icy reply. ‘That’s not exactly what I had in mind.’
Rather, it had been hoped that Frenay might play the lone and understated representative of de Gaulle, demonstrating respect and helping to inflate Giraud’s ego. As it happened, Darlan had then stepped into the ring and Giraud had been relegated.
However, both Giraud and Darlan had been courted by the Allies purely for political expediency. They, rather than de Gaulle, had been far better placed to help win over resistance to the Allied landings than the Free French leader. Furthermore, Roosevelt had taken a sharp dislike to what he had heard about Général de Gaulle; the outbursts, the perceived arrogance, the endless demands for arms, for money, for respect had all sat badly with the President.
That Giraud had managed to get away from France on HMS Seraph in the first place, however, had only been possible because of the risks taken by the Alliance circuit in southern France. Yet in transmitting details about Giraud to London, the Alliance resistance group fatally compromised themselves and in the following days the entire leadership was arrested. Now, it seemed, it had been all for nothing, because Giraud had been cut adrift in favour of Darlan.
For the Americans, especially, the Darlan Deal had been Realpolitik and nothing more, yet while the liberation of France had taken a step closer with the Allied landings, in the short term life was about to become a greater deal harder for most French citizens. German troops now swept into the unoccupied zones, adding to the sense of oppression. When Henri Frenay heard that the enemy had crossed the demarcation line and started occupying the southern zone, he realized that, for him and his friends in the resistance, the battle was about to change radically. And so it was.
Without delay, the RSHA sent a KdS of six sections to Lyons, known to the Germans as a hot-bed of the French resistance movement. Commanding the SD in Lyons was Hauptsturmführer Rolf Müller, but leading Section VI – Intelligence – was a particularly zealous Nazi and anti-Semite, Obersturmführer Klaus Barbie. From Godesberg in the Rhineland, Barbie had been born out of wedlock to two teachers. They married three months later, but his illegitimacy was a terrible badge of shame that meant he could never legally inherit. His had been a hard childhood; being the son of teachers, he was expected to set an example. His father was also an alcoholic and abusive; the young Klaus was regularly beaten. Shy and studious, Barbie had been raised a devout Catholic and had thought of becoming a priest, but then, having left school, developed aspirations to study theology and become an academic. As he was about to go to university, however, first his younger brother died of a chronic illness and then his father too. Because he was a bastard, his grandfather refused to give him any kind of family inheritance, so there was no money for university after all.
Instead, Barbie found himself drawn towards the Nazis. He was nineteen years old when Hitler came to power. ‘The mighty national uprising,’ he said, ‘drew me, like every German youth, along in its wake.’4 While serving in the Reichsarbeitsdienst – Labour Service – he was recruited into the SD and by 1940 had become an Obersturmführer in the SS, the equivalent of a lieutenant. It was by no means a senior rank after five years in the SD, but he had worked his way up through the ranks from nothing and was now an officer. His record was exemplary and he had earned both status and authority over others. Proving himself a particularly diligent ‘referent’ – that is, an intelligence-gathering officer – in Amsterdam, he had then been posted to Dijon in May 1942, in the occupied zone. Now, in November, he was commanding his own intelligence section in Lyons, with 200 men under his command, nearly all of whom were French volunteers. ‘I was only a lieutenant,’ he said, ‘but I had more power than a general.’5 Henri Frenay’s prediction was about to be realized.
Frenay and Emmanuel d’Astier finally left London on 18 November after two earlier attempts at the end of October had been aborted by bad weather. Before they left, however, they had one last dinner with de Gaulle, Colonel Passy and others, including the resister Pierre Brossolette. Frenay and d’Astier would not be eating a dinner such as the Savoy could provide for some time to come, but as they ate and drank well they discussed the creation of an organization that could bind both resistance movements and the pre-war political parties. They might call it the Conseil national de la résistance – the National Council of the Resistance – or CNR for short. Frenay considered it a bad idea – he’d thought the fractious politics and useless coalitions of the Third Republic had been disastrous. The last thing France needed, he argued, was everyone endlessly arguing and disagreeing with one another.
‘In that case,’ said de Gaulle, ‘we’d just have to try and find a way to work things out.’6
‘And if we failed,’ Frenay retorted, ‘we’d be up a one-way alley.’
‘No. In that case, I’d just issue orders.’
It was de Gaulle’s autocratic approach that lay at the heart of any unease on the part of men like Frenay, d’Astier and other young resistance leaders, and at this an uncomfortable silence fell over the table.
At last, Frenay said, ‘We are resisters, free to think and do as we choose. Our freedom of choice is an inalienable right. It is up to us to decide whether, in the political domain, we shall carry out your orders or not.’
De Gaulle thought for a few moments, then said, ‘Well then, Charvet, it seems that France must choose between you and me.’
Far away, in the glacial Hardangervidda in Norway, things were not going well for Jens-Anton Poulsson and his GROUSE team. In fact, it had started to go wrong the night they parachuted in because, having safely landed without mishap, they quickly realized they had been dropped not on the drop zone, but on a mountainside 10 miles west of where they should have been. Normally, this would have been no great setback, but between them they now had some 700 lb of equipment, food and other supplies. Some of it they stored, but compounding the problem was damage to their Primus stove. They needed heat – for food and for drying clothes – and that meant working out a new route, along lower slopes where there were still some trees and thus wood for making fires. Then, three days after their arrival, they were hit by a violent snowstorm. Temperatures plunged.
A mountain hut Poulsson and Haugland knew from childhood had gone, and their wireless was unable to make contact with London. Back in Britain, their superiors were growing anxious about what had happened to them. There were fears the entire mission had been compromised.
On 24 October, they finally reached a hut where they were able to have their first proper meal. Also inside the hut was a toboggan, which, by a bizarre coincidence, belonged to Poulsson. He had lost it at the start of the war, but there it was, in this hut in the middle of the Hardangervidda. He could not understand it, but it was, none the less, a very welcome discovery and certainly made their lives easier.
It was not until ten days had passed that they finally made radio contact with London. By that time they had also been spotted by local men looking for lost sheep. The GROUSE team had been ordered to shoot anyone who saw them, but Poulsson felt the men were true Norwegians and so asked them not to breathe a word and let them pass. ‘We knew the operation was very important,’ he said, ‘but it is difficult to shoot a man – to kill him.’7 It was a risk, but one, on balance, Poulsson felt was the right decision.
It had always been intended that the GROUSE party would be dropped on to the Hardangervidda just a short while before the gliders of FRESHMAN, but their delay in reaching the right drop zone as well as in making radio contact with London, and the need for clear weather and a moon, meant that it was not until an entire month later, on 19 November, that FRESHMAN was launched.
It was a disaster. The weather worsened suddenly and one of the Halifax tugs crashed into a mountain. Although the glider had been able to cast off in time, it crashed nearby, injuring a number of men; they would soon be picked up and taken prisoner. The other Halifax and glider pressed on, but although the weather suddenly improved and although they were actually where they should be, there was a failure between the GROUSE team’s Eureka beacon on the ground and the Rebecca on the Halifax. Running low on fuel, the pilot decided to abort.
After being dazzled by the dash and elan of the German glider assault on the Belgian fort of Eben-Emael back in May 1940, the British had been determined to create their own glider force, but this first-ever British glider operation had been an unmitigated disaster. FRESHMAN had failed and proved just how difficult such operations were in anything other than extremely calm and balmy weather.
‘It was a sad and bitter blow,’ said Poulsson, ‘not least because the weather was splendid over the following days.’8 They were told to stay on the Hardangervidda but were warned it was vitally important to ensure they remained safe; German troops and the Gestapo would now be on the alert. That meant retreating further into the wilderness and hunkering down. Poulsson and his team signalled for more information. ‘Keep up your hearts,’ came the reply.9 ‘We will do the job yet.’
Meanwhile, over 2,000 miles away, the scattered remnants of the Panzerarmee continued to head west. As far as Adolf Lamm was concerned, it was still utter mayhem. At Sidi Barrani, near the Libyan border, his tank broke down. While they were trying to repair it, their Leutnant was posted somewhere else and the new tank commander was a sergeant Lamm disliked immediately.
Having got the tank going again, they trundled on up the Halfaya Pass, where they were strafed by enemy aircraft. Fortunately, they were not hit, but they saw a number of dead beside the road and realized the bodies had already been stripped of boots, clothing and other possessions. Thousands of flies swarmed over them.
They managed to reach Tobruk, but then ran out of petrol. Not far away was a camp with some provisions and also petrol, but part of the petrol was on fire, sending angry flames and thick black smoke into the air. They did spot a pile of intact jerrycans, but these, they discovered, were full of aviation fuel and so no use to them. ‘A Panzer III needs about 300–400 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres,’ wrote Lamm.10 ‘A tank without petrol is worth shit.’ And so they had to drive it off the road and ditch it. They all grabbed what clothes they had, plus blankets, and then Lamm, the loader and gunner were sent on their way to find an alternative means of transport while the sergeant and driver immobilized the tank.
Soon after, Lamm came down with diarrhoea and became detached from the rest of his crew. Eventually, and still only partially recovered, he caught a ride on an artillery gun mount, and so the flight west continued.
Major Hans von Luck was still to the south of the main retreat, watching out for any outflanking manoeuvres from their pursuers. Attached to his recce regiment was the Italian Nizza Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion. At first, he’d not been pleased as, like most Germans, he had a low opinion of Italians as fighting troops, but he was to be pleasantly surprised. They appeared to know what they were doing, and proved brave and fearless. Keeping his entire formation going was difficult, especially so far down to the south, although somehow von Luck’s supply officer performed miracles in getting small convoys of fuel down to them. It meant very strict discipline, however. Half a litre of water per man per day – that was all – and minimal rations. It meant no washing and no shaving for a ten-day stretch, but that was a hardship they had to endure. By day it was still hot, but freezing cold at night. Deluges of rain and vicious sandstorms pummelled them too.
In between, however, they were able to keep one step ahead of the enemy, even luring some British reconnaissance patrols into a trap and capturing them. They also found themselves in occasional radio contact with their pursuers. One evening, von Luck’s intelligence officer called him over.
‘The Royal Dragoons are on the radio,’ he told him, ‘and they would like to speak to you.’11
Von Luck picked up the headset and heard a crackly British voice. ‘I know it’s unusual to make radio contact with you,’ said the officer, ‘but Lieutenant Smith and his scouting party have been missing since this evening. Is he with you, and if so how are things with him and his men?’
‘Yes, he is with us,’ von Luck replied. ‘All of them are unhurt and send greetings to their family and friends.’ He then asked them if he might call them too if he had anyone missing.
‘Sure,’ came the reply, ‘your calls are always welcome.’
On 13 November, the British had retaken Tobruk, that battered, beaten-up shell of a town that, just under five months earlier, had been the nadir of British fortunes in North Africa. A week later, they were in Benghazi and storming across the rest of Cyrenaica. Hitler still hoped this largely empty tract of land could be taken back, just as it had in the past, but Eighth Army were no longer in 1941. Everything was different now, not least because the Panzerarmee was still being pursued by the Allied Air Forces.
This included the US 57th Fighter Group, now operating independently but part of the Desert Air Force. Lieutenant Dale Deniston was in action almost every single day and had been since the opening of the Alamein battle – only bad weather was stopping him, which was why, when the rains came down on 16 November, he was able to catch up on his rest and get thirteen hours’ solid sleep. It did him the world of good.
But once the skies cleared, they were off again, leap-frogging forward to one landing ground after another; Air Commodore Tommy Elmhirst’s system was working just as well in pursuit as it did in retreat. ‘Went on a mission at 10.15,’ noted Deniston in his diary on 17 November.12 ‘Flew over Jerry airdrome several times, like poking a hornets’ nest with a stick. Three to four enemy fighters finally came up after us. Jackpot blue flight jumped one, but he pissed off. I led an element; we kept our tails clean.’ Later, it rained again and a wind got up. After he went to bed at around 8 p.m., Deniston’s tent nearly blew away.
None the less, as far as Mary Coningham and Tommy Elmhirst were concerned, they were not pursuing Rommel’s scattered and defeated forces as hard or as quickly as they should be; in their view, they should have been annihilated on the eastern side of the Halfaya Pass. Montgomery had blamed poor weather and that had undoubtedly played a part, but the Desert Air Force was beholden to the Army for bringing forward supplies of food, water and fuel, and by the time they had reached Tobruk, they had run out of these. Only through the great efforts of Elmhirst’s rear headquarters was it possible to supply the forward units, such as Billy Drake’s 112 Squadron or Dale Deniston and the 57th FG. Motor columns hurried back and forth, while airlifts from Egypt brought just enough supplies to enable them to operate over Cyrenaica and continue to harry the Axis retreat. Keeping the fighters going was one thing, but there were simply not enough supplies for the bombers.
Montgomery was following hard now, but there could be no doubt that a golden opportunity to finish off the Panzerarmee had gone begging. This chance had been there on 4 November, when the Panzerarmee had broken and the battle had been won. Instead of ordering his spearheads into hot pursuit, Montgomery had briefly called off the chase in order to bring his entire army forward in strength. There was a time for the methodical approach and a time for unreserved dash, but he was simply not prepared to take the risk, no matter how small. There could be no more reverses – not even a small one.
And yet, and yet … Montgomery was aware of intelligence reports about the state of Rommel’s forces, and there were still plenty of fresh troops for the pursuit – General Tuker’s 4th Indians, for one. The total number of German troops on 4 November had been under 10,000 men; 21. Panzer had just eleven tanks left, 15. Panzer none at all. Adolf Lamm had joined a fleeing 15. Panzerdivision that had utterly shot its bolt. The Luftwaffe had also left much behind – including sixty-three aircraft they destroyed themselves rather than let fall into enemy hands. At the end of June, Eighth Army’s bacon had been saved by the brilliance and relentlessness of the RAF. As the Panzerarmee fled westwards, they had no such close air support. It is impossible not to conclude that Montgomery had both been over-cautious and had misread the situation.
General Tuker was not impressed. He had been incensed when his 4th Indians were withdrawn from offensive operations on only 7 November. ‘A victorious army in pursuit,’ he noted, ‘must fling seeming discretion to the winds and seek to bring the weakened and demoralized remnants to battle and either to destroy them or force their surrender.13 They must be held and dealt with.’ This did not mean a wild goose chase and over-reaching supply lines; rather, with Eighth Army’s material superiority, he believed the remnants of the Panzerarmee could be caught and destroyed swiftly.
Wandering about the battlefield around Tel el Aqqaqir, he found it a heart-rending experience to look upon so many young dead, and the bloody shapelessness of many more. ‘We were reflecting,’ he wrote, ‘how much less painful for both sides it is when one captures one’s enemy rather than fights him to bits.’14 Eighth Army, supported so brilliantly by the RAF and with such a material advantage over the Panzerarmee, had squandered an opportunity to annihilate Rommel’s forces in a matter of a few days. Montgomery, he believed, had mismanaged his battle. Concentration of firepower, used in co-operation, Tuker felt certain, would have made a massive difference, and he was surely right. It was no wonder he was angry. And despite the rain, his men tidied up their part of the battlefield in a sixth of the time they had been allocated. He then took them off for more training.
Now, ten days on, and with the remnants of Rommel’s forces scuttling back across Cyrenaica, what was particularly frustrating Mary Coningham and Tommy Elmhirst was Montgomery’s refusal to support the Allied air forces’ efforts to keep at the enemy. ‘Mary and I had just one idea,’ wrote Elmhirst.15 ‘To go forward quickly so that the Germans should never be out of striking distance. I know the Army supply position was difficult, but so was ours. But, whereas we were stretching ourselves to the limit and making our lorries and their drivers do double their normal stint, the Army was holding themselves to a normal seven-hour day.’
Giving up on Eighth Army, Coningham turned to the Americans and specifically to General Lewis H. Brereton, commanding what had originally been a detachment of bombers, but which had now grown and been designated US 9th Air Force. He was happy to oblige and immediately arranged a ‘flying pipeline’. On just one day, forty-nine Dakotas ferried some 48,510 gallons of fuel from El Adem, near Tobruk, to Agedabia, a distance of 425 miles by road. What would have taken at least three days by truck took a few hours.
None the less, the lack of co-operation from Montgomery had incensed Coningham, especially after the unceasing support his aircrew had provided since Gazala. Montgomery’s intention now was to attack the enemy at El Agheila in mid-December. In an appreciation that reached Coningham, it was also suggested that First Army rather than Eighth should be the one to take Tripoli. Coningham immediately sent a copy to Tedder, pointing out that it looked as if Monty had no intention of pressing on beyond El Agheila. ‘The whole tone of the past weeks has borne this out,’ he wrote to his boss.16 ‘Any competent general with overwhelming force can win a positional battle, but it requires the spark of greatness to do well in pursuit or in retirement.’ Tedder was of much the same opinion.
Montgomery has always been a divisive figure. When he arrived in the desert, he brought a firm grip, gave his army a much-needed boost in morale and made sure his forces were properly and sufficiently equipped before launching his battle. He understood the operational level of war and the vital importance of maintaining supply lines, and, crucially, he also recognized the vital role of air power and how it should be integrated into the land effort. His caution was born from the need to save the lives of his men and from the recognition that there could be no more reverses; in many ways, it is hard to criticize him for that. His weaknesses, however, were largely twofold. Petty jealousies and an inherent insecurity complex made him intolerant of any questioning of his orders or of his approach to war; he was also, in modern parlance, a control freak: he had to be always in control. It was absurd that he was so unwilling to use 4th Indian Division in a greater role, but it was almost certainly due to his dislike of the Indian Army, which had rejected him when he applied to join them as a cadet; past slights were rarely forgotten. Insisting he would not tolerate ‘bellyachers’, as he called anyone who disagreed with him, was all well and good back in August, when Eighth Army’s senior corps and divisional commanders had all needed a collective rocket up their backsides, but it was a dangerous policy to insist upon at all times. A bit more flexibility was needed, plus a willingness to listen to others.
His second shortcoming, however, was more serious. His intolerance might have been more acceptable had Montgomery been a general of dazzling tactical flair, but he was not. Tuker was right: Alamein was a poorly directed battle with a truly terrible fire plan. Now, as they pursued the Panzerarmee, Monty was showing the same lack of imagination and flair. But the British were stuck with him. He had already proved Britain’s first media-savvy general of the war. He had adopted a distinctive tanker’s black beret and an understated appearance that the press loved. He told them what was going to happen and then did it. He talked in certainties. The Battle of Alamein would take at least a week, he had said, but by the end Rommel would be smashed, and so it had proved, give or take a few days. After all the setbacks of the first half of 1942, in the Far East and in the desert, Britain had a general adored by the media, who took a terrific photograph and who dealt only in victories. Tuker, Coningham, Tedder and others now starting to recognize the monster in their midst would simply have to put up with it. Montgomery was, for now at any rate, untouchable.