The Military Life & Times of General Sir Miles Dempsey GBE KCB DSO MC

Monty's Army Commander

Peter Rostron

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781848842526
• eBook ISBN: 9781844684885
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

Miles Dempsey, Commander of the British Second Army in the invasion of Europe 1944-45, is almost unknown to the general public. Yet his part in Britains contribution to that campaign was second only to Montgomerys in importance. Dempsey survived two and a half years of bitter fighting as an infantry officer on the Western Front before accompanying his beloved Royal Berkshire Regiment in the little-known North West Persia campaign of 1920-21. In six years he rose from Major to command over half a million men in the largest combined operation in history, and led them to victory a year later.Based on sources which include some of Dempseys previously unpublished work and the views of those who knew him, the book traces his career as a soldier of rare distinction, a talented sportsman and a man of huge charm and shrewd intellect, dedicated to his beloved regiment and ever mindful of the lives of his soldiers. Peter Rostron examines his methods of command and his relationships with Montgomery, his Corps commanders, the Americans and the RAF. It highlights his crucial role in the Dunkirk evacuation, the training of the Canadian Army, and the invasion of Sicily, Italy, and North West Europe, and analyses why his army performed so brilliantly on D Day. Lasly, Rostron examines his contribution to the campaign in Europe, focussing on the controversial operations of EPSOM, GOODWOOD, Arnhem and the Rhine Crossing.

CHAPTER 1

‘School’

The Dempseys originated in Ireland, and Terence O’Dempsey, a senior member of the Gaelic aristocracy, was knighted on the field of battle at Kiltenan in County Limerick by the earl of Essex in 1589. As a result of his faithful service to the Crown, he was later created Viscount Glinmalery and Baron of Philipstown. By 1821, the family had settled in England, and James Dempsey, husband of Ann, was head of Dempsey and Pickard, timber merchants of Liverpool. Of James’s six children, Louisa married John Tarr, MP for Liverpool, while Henry and Arthur continued in the timber trade. Arthur, who became a timber broker, moved out to the Cheshire plain, and in 1857 his wife bore a son, Arthur Francis.

Arthur Francis became a marine insurance underwriter’s clerk, a profession which enabled him and his wife, Margaret Maud, to buy 7 Sandringham Drive, a comfortable house in the prosperous neighbourhood of New Brighton, Wallasey. Here they lived a typically middle-class life with a housekeeper, a cook and Elizabeth, a nursemaid. Elizabeth looked after the three Dempsey children, all boys, of whom the eldest, James, was born in 1889. Like his brother Patrick who was christened at St Mary’s, Wallasey, in October 1893, he had the unusual middle name of De La Fosse, his mother’s maiden name. Her father, Major General Henry De La Fosse CB, was one of the few survivors of the Cawnpore massacre in the Indian Mutiny.

In December 1896, a third son, Miles Christopher, was born, but when he was just six years old the family was enveloped in sorrow when their father committed suicide, apparently as a result of financial difficulties. It was an event which Miles would never discuss. Margaret moved to Crawley in Sussex, from where James enrolled at Dartmouth Naval College, and in 1908 Patrick entered Shrewsbury, a well-established public school in Shropshire. A number of Salopians had gained eminence in public life, probably the best known being Darwin, the evolutionist. At the time of Patrick’s arrival the school was becoming a little set in its ways, but this changed dramatically with the appointment that year of Cyril Argentine Alington as Headmaster.

Alington, at just thirty-six years of age, was younger than all of the rest of the staff but two. Educated at Marlborough and Trinity, Oxford, he was elected to All Souls in 1896 and ordained in the Church of England in 1901. He came to Shrewsbury from teaching at his old school, where he had already established an impressive reputation. He was blessed with almost every gift to ensure a successful career. Extraordinarily handsome, stimulating, theatrical in voice and manner, endowed with huge charisma and profound oratorical powers, his sermons had a deep and lasting effect on the boys. Nevil Shute, the writer, then Nevil Shute Norway, wrote of ‘The restrained, masculine school services in the chapel’ which so impressed him, and another described how he had every boy silent, moved and tense on the edge of his pew. Alington was later to become Headmaster of Eton, Chairman of the Headmasters’ Conference, and Chaplain to the King from 1921 until 1933.

To Miles, who followed Patrick to Shrewsbury in 1911, probably of equal importance was the Headmaster’s sporting prowess. As a young man Alington was a very successful cricketer, fives and rackets player, and both Dempsey boys showed much promise as sportsmen. Patrick, to whom Miles was to remain extremely close throughout his life, was in the school cricket eleven, and by the time his elder brother left, Miles was already establishing a reputation as an outstanding player. He captained the school side for one of their most memorable seasons in 1914, when they lost only one match. The Salopian for that year records its hearty congratulations to the Captain, M.C. Dempsey: ‘It is always gratifying to those interested in school cricket to see the skipper giving a lead to his crew, and this our skipper has done with rare exceptions at the wicket, where his nerve, pluck and steady patience have been a grand example and encouragement to his followers.’¹

Describing the ‘characters’ of the team, the journal notes that Dempsey was a very steady, patient bat, but too fond of driving off his right leg, and diffident of his bowling powers. Among the eleven in this, the last season before the war, were B.H. Ellis, ‘a good field and catch’, and T. Onslow, ‘an improving bowler who could make a run or two’.

Miles had decided early on a military career, possibly influenced by his grandfather and by James, who had run away from Dartmouth at sixteen and joined the French Foreign Legion. He was in the Army Class, on the classical side, when the school broke up for the summer holidays. He attended the OTC tented camp at Rugeley as a sergeant, where with other schools under their own masters as officers, and a small number of regulars, they carried out large-scale manoeuvres based on Boer War tactics. He returned for the Michaelmas term with every intention of completing another year at Shrewsbury, but the events of August 1914 had changed everything for ever, and in October, along with J.P. Moreton and G.F. Maclean, he left for the Royal Military College, Sandhurst; he was aged just seventeen years and nine months. In the course of the next year, every player in the cricket eleven, and all but two of the twenty-one monitors enlisted. By the end of the war, even members of staff were being called up; one of those to go was a brilliant young sixth-form master, Philip Bainbrigge, whose weak build and thick spectacles did not save him from soldiering – and dying – in the ranks.

Dempsey could look back on his time at Shrewsbury with satisfaction. On top of his success on the cricket field, he was a school and house monitor, and played in the second eleven football. As a general rule, a housemaster probably influences a boy’s character more than does the headmaster, but Dempsey’s housemaster, A.F. Chance, had been in post for thirty years. It is to the effect of the young and enormously energetic Alington’s huge persona that the deep religious faith and upright, honourable character, which were to be Dempsey’s throughout his life, may largely be attributed. As well as some photographs, Dempsey kept to the end of his life his cricketing records, and a collection of typed handouts on religious themes, such as an analysis of the Bible, from his time at Shrewsbury.

The Royal Military College, to which Dempsey reported, had had to adapt quickly to the demands of war. Although potential gentlemen cadets were still required to pass an entrance exam, and the majority of parents were expected to pay fees (the usual £150 per year in his case), the course had been shortened dramatically so as to produce the maximum number of officers for a rapidly expanding army. Dempsey and Maclean joined the sixty-five cadets of G Company, commanded by Captain Eden, Black Watch, as did Nevil Shute’s brother, F.H. Norway. Many of their fellow cadets came from traditional backgrounds, and the fathers of the four next to Dempsey in the College Register were described as ‘Lt Colonel’, ‘Gentleman JP’, ‘Parliamentary Agent’ and ‘Gentleman’.

The one-year course at Sandhurst, prior to the outbreak of war, was known for its hard life and strict discipline. Impeccable standards were demanded and the cadets’ drill was intended to be the best in the British Army. A famous product of the College wrote: ‘One’s natural instinct when shooting starts is to lie in a ditch and stay there until it is all over; and it is only through discipline and training that one can make oneself get out and go forward.’ The fervour, or lack of it, with which cadets applied themselves to their studies depended in many cases on whether they were desperate to obtain entry to the Indian Army – where an officer could live on his pay – or the British Army, where he probably could not. Cadets had to ride, the cause of heartache to many. The war changed all that.

Eden and the platoon commanders, Captain Robinson, Royal Dublin Fusiliers, and Captain Tonson-Rye, Royal Munster Fusiliers, instructed in organization, minor tactics and the welfare and administration of soldiers. Colour Sergeant Morris, Coldstream Guards and Sergeant Mulally, Irish Guards, taught drill and musketry.

The course was the second short wartime one, and the civilian clothing on several of the cadets in the photograph of G Company from December 1914 – two months after the course began – points to administrative problems that still needed to be overcome. The course was designed to produce officers in five months, but there was flexibility in the system. Dempsey passed out in February 1915, but others of his intake did not become officers until March, April or even, in the cases of Dashwood of the East Yorks, or Dyer of the Bedfordshire Regiment, until May.

When Dempsey left Sandhurst he was commissioned into the Royal Berkshire Regiment, whose 1st (Regular) Battalion was fighting in France. Before a young officer joined a unit at the front, he had to attend numerous courses, to acquaint him with the mechanics of trench warfare. His first port of call was always to the regiment’s depot, where Regimental Headquarters (a purely administrative body) was housed, along with the museum and the Training Company which put new recruits through their induction into the Army. Dempsey reported as a new second lieutenant to Brock Barracks, Reading, home of the Royal Berkshire Regiment, the 49th and 66th Foot. A solid county regiment, the Berkshires had earned honours in every corner of the globe from Brandywine Creek, where they trounced George Washington, to China, and, like every other regiment worth its salt, considered themselves second to none. Dempsey’s choice of regiment was a happy one. It was to be his home and inspiration for many years. He was then posted to the 3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion in Dublin to learn his craft.

While Miles was training, James and Patrick enlisted in the 5th (Service) Battalion the Royal Irish Fusiliers, which formed at Dublin. James, who had been bought out of the Foreign Legion, was the first of the family to be commissioned, and was gazetted Second Lieutenant on 19 December 1914, while Miles was still a Gentleman Cadet. Patrick was also commissioned and the brothers were together in the Battalion, part of the 10th (Irish) Division, when it was despatched to the Mediterranean. It was to serve under General Sir Ian Hamilton, whose task was to seize the Dardanelles, and put Turkey out of the war. When the first phase of the campaign had ended in stalemate, Hamilton’s operational plan was to make a fresh landing at Suvla Bay, in the hope of gaining surprise and outflanking the Turks. In August, Miles and his mother received grim news of Patrick.

On 6 August 1915, the Fusiliers were still ignorant of the plan when the sound of gunfire and flashes in the night sky had indicated their objective. At 0700 next day, lighters had come alongside and two companies at a time landed on ‘C’ Beach under fire. At 1100, they were ordered to attack the heights of Lala Baba. The plan was difficult, involving a move in one direction, followed by a change of direction for the final assault. This was difficult enough, but an added problem was that they had to narrow their frontage in order to pass the Salt Lake, where they were under the observed fire of some twenty Turksh guns. As the Fusiliers struggled knee deep through the brackish mud, Patrick was wounded in the stomach. The Battalion suffered heavily in the assault and with great difficulty settled in to hastily dug trenches on Green Hill. The Turks counter-attacked ferociously and on 19 August James was also wounded.

The war had struck home to the Dempsey family. Although both brothers returned to active service, Miles and his mother passed a troubling few weeks. The chances of recovery from wounds were much lower then than today, and the remoteness of the theatre added to their worries. Their concern was only increased when James volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps, in which almost as many pilots were killed in training as in combat. James distinguished himself, winning the Military Cross, and setting a benchmark for Miles.

Meanwhile, B.H. Ellis, the ‘good field and catch’ of the Shrewsbury 1914 cricket side, was killed by a shell when wounded, serving with the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry; ‘Fred’ Norway of G Company died of wounds in June while serving with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry; and in September, T.S. Woods, Dempsey’s fellow monitor, was killed in action with the Royal Field Artillery. With the long shadow of the war beginning to darken everyone’s lives, Nevil Shute described the atmosphere at Shrewsbury in these words:

The list of the school casualties grew every day. Older boys that we knew intimately, one who had perhaps been monitor in one’s bedroom, appeared once or twice resplendent in their new uniform, and were dead. We remembered them as we had known them less than a year before, as we knelt praying for their souls in chapel, knowing as we did so that in a year or so the little boys in our own house would be kneeling for us.²

Dempsey must have been conscious that he was embarking on a profession that demanded much and gave little. Promoted Lieutenant in August 1915, he attended courses, slowly mastering the role of an infantry officer on active service, and in June 1916 he at last joined the 1st Battalion Royal Berkshires in France. Shortly before Dempsey arrived, another fellow monitor from Shrewsbury, E. Pitcairn Jones, was killed while serving with the Rifle Brigade. The Berkshires were about to take part in the Somme offensive, and Dempsey was about to undergo his baptism of fire.

CHAPTER 2

‘Execute Orders Received’

The 1st Battalion, The Royal Berkshire Regiment was at Aldershot when war was declared and reservists soon made up its strength to the wartime establishment of 800. They moved to France, participated in the retreat from Mons and by late September were in trenches at La Metz Farm. Heavily involved from 22 October to 13 November in the First Battle of Ypres, they spent the winter in and out of trenches and were involved in a further three attacks. The summer of 1915 was relatively quiet, but on 5 September the Battalion lost 288 men in one day in the Battle of Loos. At the time Dempsey joined, the Battalion was in billets behind the line, in the Béthune sector of the Somme front. The Battalion was not to move more than 30 miles from here for the remainder of the war. More than half its number had been replaced since 1914, and the total battalion strength was 420. As a result of a comprehensive overhaul and the application of some disciplinary measures, they were still very much a regular battalion, with the standards that that implied. Throughout the war it was the common experience of regular units that, provided a nucleus survived – the Regimental Sergeant Major, the Quartermaster, the Transport Officer, the Orderly Room Sergeant and a few more – a battalion would maintain its ethos.

By the end of June reinforcements had brought the Berkshires’ numbers up to twenty-seven officers and 620 other ranks, and they were preparing for the event that is probably more evocative to the British people than any other military action – the Battle of the Somme. The modern view of the First World War, taught in our schools and fostered by much of the media, is of incompetent generals on both sides, unable to understand modern warfare, enormous casualties sustained through stupidity, and the flower of a generation sacrificed for a futile cause. This view does not stand close examination. In contrast to the large, conscript armies of the other major powers, Britain possessed a small, volunteer army, half of which garrisoned the Empire. When required to fight alongside the French, the British contribution, although high in quality, was tiny in comparison to their allies. A massive citizen army had to be mobilized with meagre resources. Commanders and staffs had to learn how to handle large numbers of barely trained men, while the first line, the regular battalions, then the second line, the Territorials, slowly bled to death. And yet it was the British Army which developed, in the tank, the answer to barbed wire and machine guns; it was the British Army which developed infantry/artillery cooperation to such a fine art that by 1918 it was the most professional in Europe; it was Haig who commanded the final offensive in 1918 that brought the German Army to its knees.

But the narrative of the Somme, and particularly the first day, with its terrible casualty list, is the abiding theme that runs through Britain’s popular understanding of the war. The writings of Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and other war poets, and the memoirs of Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, have helped to foster this influence. There are, however, works by others which, while lacking in popular appeal, give a very different view. They are the writings of the small number of regular officers who fought at battalion level throughout the conflict and survived. Three of the most significant are: The War The Infantry Knew by Captain J.C. Dunn; Infantry by Brigadier General A.W. Pagan; and The Land Locked Lake by Lieutenant Colonel A.A. Hanbury-Sparrow.

Dunn was the Regimental Medical Officer of 2nd Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers, the regular battalion which Graves wrote about in Goodbye to All That. Awarded the DSO, MC and bar and mentioned in dispatches, Dunn wrote that he put together the book, which is an amalgam of others’ recollections, as a record of a long spell of duty done in the face of difficulty and discouragement.

What was achieved is made radiant in my memory by the gay self-sacrifice of junior officers and non-commissioned officers; by the resource and cheerfulness in discomfort of the men of our Old Army, and their prompt answer to every call, confident in themselves and in each other.¹

Dunn wanted to correct the popular notion of the war and the experience of the infantry, and in particular the impression of his battalion that Graves had created.

‘Patsy’ Pagan commanded the 1st Battalion The Gloucestershire Regiment on the Western Front, without a day’s leave, from 1914 to 1918. The only times he was away from his beloved 28th were the occasions when he was wounded. Once, hearing of a German offensive, he discharged himself from hospital in his dressing gown to lead the battalion in defence. ‘Service with a good infantry battalion in France,’ he wrote, ‘was the highest thing attainable during the years 1914 to 1918, and it is a pity that the life has generally been described by people whose outlook differed from that of the ordinary man.’² He went on to say that the good comradeship and enjoyment of life that existed, the courage, goodwill and cheerfulness of the men in the ranks, and the care for the troops o...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Preface
• Prologue
• Chapter 1 ‘School’
• Chapter 2 ‘Execute Orders Received’
• Chapter 3 ‘Orderly Room’
• Chapter 4 ‘Officers’
• Chapter 5 ‘Alarm (for Troops to Turn out under Arms)’
• Chapter 6 ‘Retire or Troops About Wheel’
• Chapter 7 ‘Draw Swords’
• Chapter 8 ‘Head of Column Change Direction Half Right’
• Chapter 9 ‘Front’
• Chapter 10 ‘Form Line’
• Chapter 11 ‘Charge’
• Chapter 12 ‘Pursue’
• Chapter 13 ‘Halt’
• Chapter 14 ‘Stand Fast/Cease Firing’
• Chapter 15 ‘Last Post’
• Chapter 16 ‘Sunset’
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Select Bibliography