General ‘Boy': The Life of Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Browning

by Richard Mead

  Daphne, on the other hand, rather resented her new duties whenever she was at Frimley. She wrote to Tod that she was ‘having to visit all the soldiers wives in the battalion as I am Mrs C.O. now. Can you picture me, going round the married quarters and chatting to 40 different women?’4 She was shocked at their living conditions, which were clean enough, but very cramped and crowded. She was equally reluctant to participate in the social events demanded of officers’ wives.

  On 1 February 1936, Boy was promoted to lieutenant colonel and succeeded Beaumont-Nesbitt in command of the 2nd Battalion. By this time it had become apparent that a considerable upheaval was imminent for the Brownings, as the battalion was bound for Egypt.5 Preparations were interrupted by the death of King George V6 and it was the new Colonel-in Chief, King Edward VIII, himself a former Grenadier, who inspected the battalion, in service dress and greatcoats but already wearing sun helmets, in the stygian gloom of a raw March morning at Chelsea Barracks. A week later Boy, Daphne, Tessa and the nanny embarked with the battalion in the SS Cameronia, bound for Alexandria

  Egypt had been occupied by the British since 1882 and had become a protectorate in 1914. In 1922 the country became notionally independent, but defence and the protection of foreign interests remained the responsibility of the British Government, much to the resentment of the majority of educated Egyptians. In 1936 a new Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was signed, handing over control of the Egyptian Army to local commanders, albeit with a large British Military Mission attached. However, there was still a sizeable body of British troops in Egypt, not least because relations with Italy, which had invaded Ethiopia in the previous October, were very poor and a potentially serious threat was perceived from the substantially larger Italian forces in neighbouring Libya.

  Most of the British troops were to be found in three formations, the Cairo Brigade, the Canal Brigade and the Cavalry Brigade. Boy’s battalion was based in Alexandria, at the Mustapha Barracks, for the duration of its tour of duty, although it was initially in the Cairo Brigade and then in the Canal Brigade. Boy’s immediate superior in the latter was Brigadier W. T. Brooks, an old friend who had been a company commander at Sandhurst during Boy’s time as Adjutant. The other battalions in the Canal Brigade were stationed along the Suez Canal itself.

  For the most part the programme of training continued as if the battalion was in England, with platoon and company drills and musketry dominating the early part of each season, followed by collective training for the whole battalion, the last made much easier by the space and lack of population in the Western Desert. Whereas collective training in the UK was a summer event, followed by brigade exercises in the autumn, in Egypt these were delayed to October and February to take advantage of the cool weather. A new feature was a series of small expeditions into the desert, a number led by Boy himself. One important reconnaissance took place from 12 to 16 November 1937, its purpose being to investigate defensive positions against an attack from the west. The party of thirty-six was divided into two groups, each with four trucks and a water cart, the first group also including Boy’s Hillman Hawk. Three further trucks carried supplies and spare parts to an intermediate point. The entire party travelled together from Alexandria to El Alamein, before turning south along a desert track to Naqb Abu Dweis, at the edge of the Qattara Depression, where they camped for the night. On the next day the groups divided, with one travelling south-west to Qara and the other following a track to the same destination along the top of the cliffs lining the Depression. On the third day the combined party travelled south-east to the furthest point at Qaret Agnes at the western end of the Depression, before going north and eventually retracing their steps back to Naqb Abu Dweis and Alexandria. The total distance covered was 560 miles. After this particular exercise, Boy wrote an appreciation of the country, giving his opinion that the Qattara Depression itself was effectively impassable to large bodies of troops, especially in vehicles. He concluded that the best defensive position lay on the shortest line between there and the sea at El Alamein, whilst the alternative, many miles further forward at Mersa Matruh, was likely to be untenable. Some five years later he would be proved correct.

  Other activities for the battalion included sports, with which Boy remained personally involved wherever possible. Athletics, football, cricket and swimming were all encouraged, with frequent matches played against other units, not only from the Army but also the other two services, whilst in early 1937 a football match was arranged with the visiting German cruiser Emden, which the Germans won 3–1.

  Daphne loathed Egypt. It was her misfortune that she arrived there after the end of the cool season, when the weather was beginning to become very unpleasant. She and Boy settled into a house at 13 Rue Jessop, where at least she had an establishment of domestic servants, but she was unable to go for the long walks she enjoyed in Cornwall, she disliked watching the races or polo and she found the local expatriate community boring and parochial. ‘The English colony’, she wrote to Tod, ‘is comparatively small. We don’t care a pin for any of them.’7 Jamaica Inn had by then been published very successfully and she was on to a new project, a history of her family titled simply The Du Mauriers. Writing in the heat of the Egyptian summer was more than a chore, but she stuck to it and was able to send the manuscript back to her publisher, Victor Gollancz, in August.

  Shortly afterwards she discovered that she was pregnant again. The climate was doing her no good at all, but she and Boy, with Tessa and the nanny, managed to take local leave in the mountains of Cyprus in September, which was a great success. Nevertheless, and although on her return to Alexandria she found the weather improving considerably, while her condition allowed her to excuse herself from the parties leading up to Christmas, she and Boy decided that she would have to go home for the birth and she sailed on the SS Otranto in mid-January.

  Flavia was born on 2 April 1937 and this time Daphne was not so disappointed about the baby not being a boy. Boy came home on three months leave in May, which allowed Daphne to begin work on a new novel whilst she was still in England. Leaving the children with Nancy and Grace at Rousham, the two of them returned to Egypt together at the end of July, right into the middle of the Egyptian summer, where she worked tirelessly but often fruitlessly, on Rebecca. Deeply homesick and loathing the social life, her sense of inadequacy was reflected in the character of the unnamed heroine, the second Mrs de Winter. These feelings were given more weight by her jealousy of Jan Ricardo, which still lingered and was, in some ways, to remain with her for many more years. The novel also introduced to the world, had it realized it, another obsession of Daphne’s, this time for a house. The Manderley of the novel was Menabilly, which Daphne had discovered during her walks around the Fowey countryside and which she was determined somehow to make her own.

  The 2nd Battalion’s posting to Egypt came to an end in December 1937. It arrived back in Southampton on the 14th of the month, moving directly to London and exercising its privilege of marching through the City with colours flying, drums beating and bayonets fixed, before being greeted at the Mansion House by the Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs. Boy returned with his reputation enhanced. Brooks had written an excellent report on him, endorsed by Lieutenant General Sir George Weir, GOC British Troops in Egypt, who thought that he would make a good brigade commander.

  The battalion was much depleted after its return to England, with a large number of guardsmen coming to the end of their period of service and going into the Reserves. By May 1938 it was restored to full strength in time for its return to Wellington Barracks and to ceremonial duties for the first time since it left for Egypt. On the 25th of that month it received new colours from its third Colonel-in-Chief in two years, the Abdication having taken place whilst it was away. The old colours were laid up in St Paul’s Cathedral.

  The countdown to the next global conflict was now beginning and Boy, like some others, began to show signs of extreme frustration at the slow progress in modernizing the Army, frequently ven
ting his opinions on both his superiors and their political masters to his family and friends. The only way in which he could directly make a contribution was by bringing his battalion to a very high level of efficiency. Peter Carrington, who joined the battalion from Sandhurst in January 1939, was astonished by the relaxed attitude of a number of officers in the Grenadiers, who he felt were completely unprepared for the war which by that time everyone thought was coming. The exception was Boy, whom he considered dynamic in his efforts to improve matters, albeit exasperated by the lack of equipment, notably transport and up to date weaponry. Boy was unable to do very much about poorly performing officers, other than through their annual reports, but he had a free hand with the NCOs and Carrington remembered him reducing eleven sergeants in rank after an exercise on Chobham Common. Carrington thought that he was a very good commanding officer, with a striking personality, albeit that his explosive temper made him a terrifying figure to a young subaltern.8

  By this time it was known that all three regular Grenadier battalions would be included in any expeditionary force to be sent to the Continent in the event of war, but Boy was not destined to go with them, as on 1 August 1939 he was removed from the Regimental List, unemployed but on full pay. He took advantage of his temporary idleness by going cruising for a fortnight with Daphne in the sailing yacht they had recently acquired, Restless of Plyn. At the beginning of September he was promoted to colonel, with seniority backdated to 1 February, and appointed Assistant Commandant of the Small Arms School.

  Chapter 10

  Brigadier (1939–1941)

  The Small Arms School had its origins in the School of Musketry, established in Hythe in 1853 on the orders of Lord Hardinge, the Duke of Wellington’s successor as Commander-in-Chief, with the purpose of providing advanced instruction in personal weapons. The new name was adopted in 1919 and the school was expanded to include the Machine Gun School at Netheravon in 1926. There was a permanent staff, formed initially as the Corps of Instructors of Musketry and renamed the Small Arms School Corps in 1929.

  The School ran a number of courses for officers and NCOs, lasting from a few days to ten weeks. These taught the use of a large variety of weapons, from pistols at one end to the 2-pounder anti-tank gun at the other. The school was also used to test new and modified weapons prior to their acceptance by the Army. In 1939, the size of the establishment was still modest, the full-time staff numbering about forty at each of the two wings at Hythe and Netheravon, with an additional number of attached officers.

  Boy was Assistant Commandant for exactly a month before being promoted to brigadier and appointed Commandant. On their return from Egypt, he and Daphne had rented a house called Greyfriars at Church Crookham in Hampshire, which Daphne had liked, but they now moved into the Commandant’s house in Hythe, with which she was less pleased. Rebecca had been published to great acclaim in 1938, since when there had been something of a pause in her writing, partly necessitated by the nanny going off sick for some time after the return from Egypt.

  As usual, Boy threw himself into his work, as demand for more and better courses meant a rapid expansion in the number of instructors, achieved by calling back reservists and transferring some of the best of the infantry students. Having attended a course himself back in 1928 he was broadly familiar with the school, but it needed to be put on an entirely different wartime footing, which played well to his organizational skills. Among other new initiatives, it was decided to open up an establishment at Foulness to carry out experimental work. There were no battle schools at this time, let alone a School of Infantry, so the Small Arms School was one of the few places at which junior officers and NCOs could be taught minor infantry tactics involving fieldcraft and weapons handling, making it a most valuable resource for the Army.

  Well aware of the importance of his task, Boy was nevertheless profoundly discontented. In a letter to his Aunt Helen in October 1939 he wrote: ‘I feel rather an upstart sitting at home here and getting promotion while so many of my old brother officers are out in France.’ At the end of August 1939 he had even written to the Military Secretary in an unsuccessful attempt to have the appointment cancelled, due to the imminence of a state of war, but his hopes of active service had been dashed and he was ordered to report for duty as instructed. He nevertheless remained determined to go over to France to see for himself what was happening, finding an excuse to do so in January 1940, when he paid a three-day visit to the BEF.

  At the beginning of the second week of May 1940 he was back in France again, ostensibly to introduce a new pamphlet on the Bren Gun to the Director of Military Training at GHQ. He used the trip to visit his old 2nd Battalion and the 1st Battalion, now commanded by John Prescott. At GHQ he found two old school friends, Robert Bridgeman, a contemporary in ‘Pop’ at Eton, and now the GSO1 (Staff Duties) and Philip Gregson-Ellis, the GSO1 (Operations) and a fellow Grenadier. To make the Old Etonian party complete, Oliver Leese arrived on 10 May as Deputy Chief of Staff. On the very same day the Germans attacked in the West and it was immediately made clear that all extraneous personnel should leave1. Carrying a letter from Leese to his wife, Boy returned to England immediately.

  Other than to effect a quick handover and to pick up his kit, he was not to return to Hythe. While he had been away a signal had arrived from the War Office, ordering him to take immediate command of 128 Infantry Brigade, where the incumbent had been taken ill. As he was on the move, it failed to reach him and further increasingly strident signals followed him round France and back to England. By the time Boy arrived at his new formation on 14 May, he was in a foul temper at being harassed in such a way and his Brigade Major had to take him for a very long walk to calm him down.

  The Brigade Major was a man on whom Boy would rely a great deal for much of the rest of the War. Gordon Walch had been a cadet at Sandhurst during Boy’s time there as Adjutant, following which he was commissioned into the Loyal (North Lancashire) Regiment in 1926. His career had consisted mostly of service with his regiment in India and England, broken only by a short posting to the Netheravon Wing of the Small Arms School. He was nearly as new to the brigade as Boy and this was his first staff appointment after completing the short wartime course at the Staff College.

  128 Brigade comprised three Territorial Army units, 1/4th, 2/4th and 5th Battalions of the Hampshire Regiment and was thus inevitably known as the Hampshire Brigade. The parent formation was 43 (Wessex) Division, a first-line Territorial division which, at the time of Boy’s arrival, was preparing to go to France. In the event, the collapse of the Allied forces on the Continent and the evacuation of the BEF meant that its planned move was cancelled and, as the best equipped division in the UK by the end of June 1940, it became a key component of the country’s defence against invasion.

  On the day after Boy assumed command, the three battalion commanders, two Territorials and a Regular officer, were instructed to report to him. The first two entered, saluted Boy, who was seated at his desk, and sat down in chairs opposite him. The Regular CO also saluted, but remained standing to await the Brigadier’s pleasure. Walch was summoned immediately and ordered to take the Territorials outside and instruct them in the proper manners required in appearing before a superior officer, only after which could the meeting begin.

  The full weight of his personality now imposed on his immediate subordinates, Boy could begin to lick the rest of the brigade into what he considered was the proper shape. His first action was to draw up Standing Orders, the first of which stated in large letters: ‘Any officer or other rank who falls out on the line of march WILL be court-martialled.’ Other orders followed in the same vein and the brigade very quickly got the message about the standards to which it was expected to conform.

  Boy’s arrival was generally well received. Tom Balding, who was sent to Brigade HQ as a liaison officer, wrote subsequently: ‘It was our great good luck to have him….He looked us over and told us that we were of good quality but not yet alert… He gave us two mon
ths to get it right and we did. It was a great moment for the assembled officers of the brigade when later he said he would be proud to lead them in battle.’ 2 Balding continued: ‘It was a bit of luck for me to go to his headquarters. He was the only commander I met during the war that, if you carried out his orders as he gave them, you did right. With others I found that they complained, putting the blame elsewhere.’ It was evidently a happy HQ, with Boy solicitous for the well-being of his staff. Balding recalled that, on the occasions when Boy provided wine for the senior table in the mess, he would also do so for the junior table, not wishing to see his subalterns spending all their meagre pay in the pub.

  Brigade HQ was at Evercreech in Somerset, in the heart of the division’s recruiting area, but, a week after Boy arrived, orders were received to move to Hertfordshire and on 25 May a new HQ was opened at Tatmore Place, near Hitchin. Activity increased significantly, the immediate priorities being to reconnoitre the surrounding area, to identify sites for road blocks and to establish liaison with the police and civil defence organizations. The Local Defence Volunteers, soon to become the Home Guard, came under operational command.

  An early visitor was Field Marshal the Earl of Cavan, a former CIGS whom Boy had first encountered as the commander of the Guards Division in 1915 and had known as a senior Grenadier subsequently. Cavan proffered the use of a number of his retainers, whom he had formed into a motor cycle reconnaissance section. As they knew the area well, this was immediately accepted and the field marshal became a regular guest in the officers’ mess.