Bernard Law
Montgomery, the son of a bishop, was born in London on 17th November
1887. He was educated at St Paul's School and Sandhurst Military Academy
and after graduating in 1908 joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
Montgomery served in India before
being sent to France at the beginning of the First World War. He was seriously
wounded when he was shot in the chest
in October 1914 and was hospitalized in England. He returned to the
Western Front in 1916 and by 1918 was Chief of Staff of the 47th London
Division.
Montgomery remained in the British Army and in 1926 became an instructor
at Camberley.
Promoted to the rank of major general
he was sent to command British forces Palestine in October, 1938.On the
outbreak of the Second World War Montgomery was sent to France with the
British Expeditionary Force. He led the 2nd Corps but was forced to retreat
to Dunkirk during Germany's
Western Offensive and arrived back in England on 1st June, 1940.
Montgomery was placed in command of the 5th Corps (July 1940-April
1941), the 12th Corps (April 1941-December 1941) and the South-Eastern
Army (December 1941-August 1942).
In July 1942 Erwin Rommel and the Deutsches Afrika Korps were only 113km
(70 miles) from Alexandria. The situation was so serious that Winston
Churchill made the long journey to Egypt to discover for himself what
needed to be done. Churchill decided to make changes to the command
structure. General Harold Alexander was placed in charge of British land
forces in the Middle East and Montgomery was chosen to replace Claude
Auchinleck as commander of the Eighth Army.
On 30th August, 1942, Erwin Rommel attacked at Alam el Halfa. Montgomery
responded by ordering his troops to withdraw to El Alamein and
to establish a good defensive line from the coast to the impassable
Qattara Depression. Montgomery was now able to make sure that Rommel and
the German Army was unable to make any further advances into Egypt.
Over the next six weeks Montgomery began to stockpile vast quantities of
weapons and ammunition to make sure that by the time he attacked he
possessed overwhelming firepower. By the middle of October the Eighth
Army totalled 195,000 men, 1,351 tanks and 1,900 pieces of artillery.
This included large numbers of recently delivered Sherman M4 and Grant
M3 tanks.
On 23rd October Montgomery launched Operation Lightfoot with the largest
artillery bombardment since the First World War. The attack came at the
worst time for the Deutsches Afrika Korps as Erwin Rommel was on sick
leave in Austria. His replacement, General George Stumme, died of a
heart-attack during the 1000 gun bombardment of the German lines. Stume
was replaced by General Ritter von Thoma and Adolf Hitler phoned Rommel
to order him to return to Egypt immediately.
The Germans defended their positions well and after two days the Eighth
Army had made little progress and Montgomery ordered an end to the
attack. When Erwin Rommel returned he launched a counterattack at Kidney
Ridge (27th October). Montgomery now returned to the offensive and the 9th
Australian Division created a salient in the enemy positions, which they
managed to hold despite a series of German attacks.
Winston Churchill was disappointed by the Eighth Army's lack of success
and accused Montgomery of fighting a "half-hearted" battle.
Montgomery ignored these criticisms and instead made plans for a new
offensive, Operation Supercharge.
On 1st November 1942, Montgomery launched an attack on the Deutsches
Afrika Korps at Kidney Ridge. After initially resisting the attack,
Rommel decided he no longer had the resources to hold his line and on
the 3rd November he ordered his troops to withdraw. However, Adolf
Hitler overruled his commander and the Germans were forced to stand and
fight.
The next day Montgomery ordered his men forward. The Eighth Army broke
through the German lines and Erwin Rommel, in danger of being
surrounded, was eventually given permission by Hitler to retreat. Those
soldiers on foot, including large numbers of Italian soldiers, were
unable to move fast enough and were taken prisoner.
For a while it looked like the the British would cut off Rommel's army
but a sudden rain storm on 6th November turned the desert into a
quagmire and the chasing army was slowed down.
Rommel, now with only twenty tanks left, managed to get to Sollum on the
Egypt-Libya border.
On 8th November Erwin Rommel learned of the Allied invasion of Morocco
and Algeria that was under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
His depleted army now faced a war on two fronts.
The British Army recaptured Tobruk
on 13th November, 1942, bringing the battle at El Alamein to an end.
During the campaign half of Rommel's 100,000 man army was killed,
wounded or taken prisoner. He also lost over 450 tanks and 1,000 guns.
The British and Commonwealth forces suffered 13,500 casualties and 500
of their tanks were damaged. However, of these, 350 were repaired and
were able to take part in future battles.
Winston Churchill was convinced that the battle of El Alamein marked the
turning point in the war and ordered the ringing of church bells all
over Britain. As he said later:
- "Before Alamein we never had a
defeat, after Alamein we never had a defeat."
Montgomery and the Eighth Army
continued to move forward and captured Tripoli on 23rd January, 1943.
Rommel was unable to mount a successful counterattack and on 9th March
he was replaced by Jurgen von Arnium as commander in chief of Axis
forces in Africa. This change failed to halt the Allied advance in
Africa and on 11th May, 1943, the Axis forces surrendered Tunisia.
At the Casablanca Conference held in January 1943, Winston Churchill and
Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to launch an invasion of Sicily. It was
hoped that if the island was taken Italy might withdraw from the war. It
was also argued that a successful invasion would force Adolf Hitler to
send troops from the Eastern Front and help to relieve pressure on the
Red Army in the Soviet Union.
The operation was placed under the supreme command of General Dwight D.
Eisenhower. General Harold Alexander was commander of ground operations
and his 15th Army Group included Montgomery (8th Army) and General
George Patton (US 7th Army). Admiral Andrew Cunningham was in charge of
naval operations and Air Marshal Arthur Tedder was air commander.
On 10th July 1943, the 8th Army landed at five points on the
south-eastern tip of the island and the US 7th Army at three beaches to
the west of the British forces. The Allied troops met little opposition
and Patton and his troops quickly took Gela, Licata and Vittoria. The
British landings were also unopposed and Syracuse was taken on the the
same day. This was followed by Palazzolo (11th July), Augusta (13th
July) and Vizzini (14th July), whereas the US troops took the Biscani
airfield and Niscemi (14th July).
General George Patton now moved to the west of the island and General
Omar Bradley headed north and the German Army was forced to retreat to
behind the Simeto River. Patton took Palermo on 22nd July cutting off
50,000 Italian troops in the west of the island. Patton now turned east
along the northern coast of the island towards the port of Messina.
Meanwhile Montgomery and the 8th Army were being held up by German
forces under Field Marshal Albrecht Kesselring. The Allies carried out
several amphibious assaults attempted to cut off the Germans but they
were unable to stop the evacuation across the Messina Straits to the
Italian mainland. This included 40,000 German and 60,000 Italian troops,
as well as 10,000 German vehicles and 47 tanks.
On 17th August 1943, General George Patton and his troops marched into
Messina. The capture of Sicily made it possible to clear the way for
Allied shipping in the Mediterranean. It also helped to undermine the
power of Benito Mussolini and Victor Emmanuel III forced him to resign.
Montgomery, as commander of the 8th Army, led the invasion of Italy on
3rd September, 1943. When he landed at Reggio he experienced little
resistance and later that day British warships landed the 1st Parachute
Division at Taranto. Six days later the US 6th Corps arrived at Salerno.
These troops faced a heavy bombardment from German troops and the
beachhead was not secured until 20th September.
The German Army fought ferociously in southern Italy and the Allied
armies made only slow progress as the moved north towards Rome. The 5th
Army took Naples on 1st October and later that day the 8th Army captured
the Foggia airfields.
In December 1943, Montgomery was appointed head of the 2nd Army and
commander of all ground forces in the proposed invasion of Europe.
Montgomery believed he was better qualified than General Dwight
Eisenhower to have been given overall control of Operation Overlord.
However, as the United States provided most of the men, material and
logistical support, Winston Churchill was unable to get the decision
changed.
Soon after the D-Day invasion Montgomery proposed Operation
Market-Garden. The combined ground and airborne attack was designed to
gain crossings over the large Dutch rivers, the Mass, Waal and Neder
Rijn, to aid the armoured advance of the British 2nd Army. On 17th
September 1944, three divisions of the 1st Allied Airbourne Corps landed
in Holland. At the same time the British 30th Corps advanced from the
Meuse-Escaut Canal. The bridges at Nijmegen and Eindhoven were taken but
a German counter-attack created problems at Arnhem. Of the 9,000 Allied
troops at Arnhem, only 2,000 were left when they were ordered to
withdraw across the Rhine on 25th September.
After the failure of Op. Market Garden Montgomery began to question the strategy
developed by Eisenhower and as a result of comments made at a press
conference he gave on 7th January, 1945, he was severely rebuked by
Winston Churchill and General Alan Brooke, the head of the British Army.
Although he came close to being sacked Montgomery was allowed to remain
in Europe and the end of the war was appointed Commander in Chief of the
British Army of Occupation.
In 1946 Montgomery was granted a peerage and he took the title Viscount
Montgomery of Alamein. He also served under General Dwight Eisenhower as
deputy supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe. |
