The British journalist Mark Urban wrote that the purpose of Goodwood was to draw German troops to their left flank to allow the Americans to breakout on the right flank, arguing that Montgomery had to lie to his soldiers about the purpose of Goodwood as the average British soldier would not have understood why they were being asked to create a diversion to allow the Americans to have the glory of staging the breakout with Operation Cobra.
Henry Montgomery was the second son of the noted British Indian Empire official, Sir Robert Montgomery, who died a month after Bernard's birth.
Yet strategically it fitted into a logical division of labors, for it was towards Caen that the enemy reserves would race once the alarm was sounded.[126].
Statue of Bernard Montgomery in Montgomery Square, Brussels. [21] On graduation in September 1908 he was commissioned into the 1st Battalion the Royal Warwickshire Regiment as a second lieutenant,[22] and first saw overseas service later that year in India. There was a miscommunication between the two men or Eisenhower did not understand the strategy. Montgomery did not attend the funeral, claiming he was "too busy". [197], One incident that illustrated this occurred during the North African campaign when Montgomery bet Walter Bedell Smith that he could capture Sfax by the middle of April 1943. Instead of carrying out the advance to Arnhem he ought to have made certain of Antwerp". [19] He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for gallant leadership: the citation for this award, published in the London Gazette in December 1914 reads: "Conspicuous gallant leading on 13th October, when he turned the enemy out of their trenches with the bayonet.
[151], Admiral Ramsay, who proved to be a far more articulate and forceful champion of the Canadians than their own generals, starting on 9 October demanded of Eisenhower in a meeting that he either order Montgomery to make supporting the First Canadian Army in the Scheldt fighting his number one priority or sack him. She never married, and shared a bed with her sister - but that was not unusual at the time.
Alan Brooke, chief of the British Imperial General Staff, wrote: "Ike knows nothing about strategy and is quite unsuited to the post of Supreme Commander.
The risky plan required three Airborne Divisions to capture numerous intact bridges along a single-lane road, on which an entire Corps had to attack and use as its main supply route. During this battle, US Ninth Army, which had remained part of 21st Army Group after the Battle of the Bulge, formed the northern arm of the envelopment of German Army Group B, with US First Army forming the southern arm. The casualties were 5,500 with 7 miles (11 km) of ground gained.
During the Western Desert campaign of the Second World War, Montgomery commanded the British Eighth Army from August 1942, through the Second Battle of El Alamein and on to the final Allied victory in Tunisia in May 1943. What is the hink-pink for blue green moray? [38] After Montgomery's death, John Carver wrote that his mother had arguably done the country a favour by keeping his personal oddities—his extreme single-mindedness, and his intolerance of and suspicion of the motives of others—within reasonable bounds long enough for him to have a chance of attaining high command. [133], Operation Goodwood almost cost Montgomery his job, as Eisenhower seriously considered sacking him and only chose not to do so because to sack the popular "Monty" would have caused such a political backlash in Britain against the Americans at a critical moment in the war that the resulting strains in the Atlantic alliance were not considered worth it. Se merSe mindre. Although he still wore a standard British officer's cap on arrival in the desert, he briefly wore an Australian broad-brimmed hat before switching to wearing the black beret (with the badge of the Royal Tank Regiment and the British General Officer's badge) for which he became notable.
[185], 21st Army Group's river crossing was followed by the encirclement of the Ruhr Pocket. I positioned British troops as reserves behind the First and Ninth Armies until such time as American reserves could be created.[180]. [202], Montgomery was Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) from 1946 to 1948, succeeding Alan Brooke. [28], After the First World War Montgomery commanded the 17th (Service) Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers,[29] a battalion in the British Army of the Rhine, before reverting to his substantive rank of captain (brevet major) in November 1919. During this time, Montgomery faced serious trouble from his military superiors and the clergy for his frank attitude regarding the sexual health of his soldiers, but was defended from dismissal by his superior Alan Brooke, commander of II Corps. [166] For his part, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the German commander of the Western Front ordered General Gustav-Adolf von Zangen, the commander of 15th Army that: "The attempt of the enemy to occupy the West Scheldt in order to obtain the free use of the harbor of Antwerp must be resisted to the utmost" (emphasis in the original). We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future. One of nine children, Montgomery spent his early years at the family's ancestral home of New Park in Northern Ireland before his father was made Bishop of Tasmania in 1889. According to J. Toland, harvnb error: no target: CITEREFCopp2006 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFCaddick-Adams2015 (, The Supreme Command, Forrest C Pogue, Chapter XX – The Winter Counteroffensives, pp. Husband of Eleanor Montgomery.
Suffering heavy losses in Normandy would diminish British leadership and prestige within its empire and on post-war Europe in particular. The long-running dispute over what Montgomery's "master plan" in Normandy was, led historians to differ greatly about the purpose of Goodwood. He would also be able to ensure that British units were spared some of the high-attrition actions, but would be most prominent when the final blows were struck. [139] Montgomery began his offensive into the Suisse Normande region with Operation Bluecoat with Sir Richard O'Connor's VIII Corps and Gerard Bucknall's XXX Corps heading south. [26] He was promoted to colonel in June 1934 (seniority from January 1932). Sister of Major-General Sir Percy Cleghorn Stanley Hobart, KBE, CB, DSO, MC and Charles Hobart. Born in 1887, Montgomery was married for 10 years from 1927, but the academic described this an "an aberration" in what had otherwise been a life devoted entirely to being with men. I don't suppose anybody would put up with my sort of behaviour these days. Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, KG, GCB, DSO, PC, DL (/məntˈɡʌməri ... ˈæləmeɪn/; 17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976), nicknamed "Monty" and "The Spartan General",[10] was a senior British Army officer who served in both the First World War and the Second World War. As early as 1976 - five years after his death - one earlier biographer, Lord Chalfont, noted his "predilection for the company of young men".
Montgomery's Garter banner on display in St Mary's, Warwick.
Married and a mother of three, the novelist had an affair with the actress Gertrude Lawrence, an authorised biography said in 1993. Bernard's mother, Maud, was the daughter of The V. Rev. Montage av #klätterplattform på @skeppsviken arbetsplats #kurorten.
[33], In May 1923, Montgomery was posted to the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division, a Territorial Army (TA) formation. [55] The 3rd Division returned to Britain intact with minimal casualties. Ever since Oscar Wilde claimed the Elizabethan playwright was in love with a boy actor, Willie Hewes, critics have claimed he was gay - relying on his sonnets for justification. [113] On 14 July 1944, Montgomery wrote to his patron Brooke, saying he had chosen on a "real show down on the eastern flanks, and to loose a Corps of three armoured divisions in the open country about the Caen-Falaise road...The possibilities are immense; with seven hundred tanks loosed to the South-east of Caen, and the armoured cars operating far ahead, anything can happen. Montgomery said that the Americans' most important problem was that they had no clear-cut objective, and allowed local commanders to set military policy. [139] The success of Cobra was aided by Operation Spring when the II Canadian Corps under General Guy Simonds (the only Canadian general whose skill Montgomery respected) began an offensive south of Caen that made little headway, but which the Germans regarded as the main offensive. [115] Montgomery thus knew German Army Group B had lost 96,400 men while receiving 5,200 replacements and the Panzer Lehr Division now based at St. Lô was down to only 40 tanks. In the inter-war years he commanded the 17th (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers and, later, the 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment before becoming commander of the 9th Infantry Brigade and then General officer commanding (GOC), 8th Infantry Division. [142] On 11 August, Montgomery changed his plan, with the Canadians to take Falaise and to meet the Americans at Argentan. Elizabeth died between wars w.
He ordered immediate reinforcement of the vital heights of Alam Halfa, just behind his own lines, expecting the German commander, Erwin Rommel, to attack with the heights as his objective, something that Rommel soon did. David Montgomery married, secondly, Tessa Browning, daughter of Lt.-Gen. Sir Frederick Arthur Montague Browning and Daphne du Maurier, in 1970. The material on this site can not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with prior written permission of Multiply. At Méteren, near the Belgian border at Bailleul, he was shot through the right lung by a sniper, during the First Battle of Ypres. [86], The next major Allied attack was the Allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky). This led to an exasperated Eisenhower telling Montgomery that the question was not the command arrangement but rather his (Montgomery's) ability and willingness to obey orders.
[141] A dissatisfied Montgomery sacked Bucknall for being insufficiently aggressive and replaced him with General Brian Horrocks. [59] These invasion plans also did not go ahead. It got as high as Eisenhower who, with his renowned skill in diplomacy, ensured Montgomery did get his Flying Fortress, though at a great cost in ill feeling. Montgomery ordered all contingency plans for retreat to be destroyed. [19] Montgomery's marriage had been extremely happy.