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

by Richard Mead

  Brooke reacted immediately. On the day before he left for Morocco he issued another memo to the Chiefs of Staff pointing out that the proposals advocated by Portal and Ismay would result in the disintegration of the airlanding brigade, the destruction of the right balance between parachute and glider-borne troops in the Airborne Division, a serious reduction in the striking power of the Airborne Division and the restriction of the role of airborne forces to minor operations. He asked for a rescission of the order to curtail glider production, a request to the United States for the use of their Waco Hadrian gliders and the acceleration of the provision of transport aircraft from whatever source.

  Boy had also sent a copy of his report to Ismay, writing in the covering letter: ‘In order that the authorities may be fully aware of the state of readiness of the Airborne Division, I have put this paper through official channels. I am sending you a copy for your private information and for such action as you consider necessary.’ Just off to Casablanca himself, Ismay could do nothing immediately but it is very likely that he showed it to Churchill, which was certainly Boy’s expectation. In the event, January 1943 turned out to be the low point of the airborne forces’ political fortunes, as the conference was about to produce some decisions which would propel it forward faster than could possibly have been imagined at the turn of the year.

  Unaware of this, Boy lost no opportunity to spread the word, among other things arranging for a number of Members of Parliament to visit the division on 28 January. The MPs were given the full treatment, with an introduction by Boy and Nigel Norman on their arrival, followed by an inspection of the division’s gliders. Those who wished were offered a short trip by glider, embarking in two Horsas from Netheravon and landing again at Dumbell Copse. Boy himself flew in one of them and it had the misfortune to make a very hard landing. One of the MPs, Ellen Wilkinson, suffered a broken ankle and was rushed off to Tidworth Hospital, whilst others suffered minor injuries, including Boy himself, who damaged his shoulder. He struggled through the rest of the day, but by the following morning it was clear that the injury was more serious than had been supposed and he was admitted to Shaftesbury Hospital.

  Daphne was informed and rushed up from Cornwall, staying in a pub near the hospital. In addition to his shoulder problem Boy had also developed a blood clot on one knee, which required bed rest. Nevertheless, he insisted on returning to duty on 3 February. Daphne went up to London for a few days, but returned to find him back in bed on Eagger’s orders because of the blood clot. After the clot had dispersed she remained in Netheravon to look after him.

  On 26 February, still feeling the after effects of the accident, Boy went up to London to see Brooke for the first time since the latter’s return from Casablanca. Plans had moved on remarkably fast at the conference, where it had been agreed that the next step for the Allies after the end of the Tunisian campaign would be the invasion of Sicily. Two days before their meeting, Brooke had issued another memo to the Chiefs of Staff outlining the plans, which among other things envisaged the use of three British and two US airborne brigades. As the complete Airborne Division would be required, Brooke continued, it would be necessary to raise another in the UK to replace it, and he called for the resumption of the glider production programme and some encroachment on the bomber effort. Brooke attached to his memo a telegram to Eisenhower, in response to a formal request from the latter, agreeing to send the rest of the Airborne Division to North Africa and continuing: ‘Also propose sending General Browning in advance with small staff to assist in planning for British airborne forces.’ The message about the lack of its own experience seemed at last to have got through at Allied Forces HQ.

  After considering the implications of what was for both of them an enormously positive development, which even the RAF would be powerless to prevent, the CIGS ended the meeting on another note by delivering a rocket to Boy for writing letters to politicians, a major crime in Brooke’s eyes.7 However, Brooke went on to comment on how ill Boy looked after his accident and ordered him to take at least two weeks leave.

  Handing over temporary command of the division to Hopkinson, Boy spent his leave down at Fowey, the longest period he was to have off at any one time during the war. Daphne relished the opportunity to have him to herself, which had never really been possible at Langley End and only briefly on the short breaks he had been able to take subsequently. They managed to resume their ‘routes’ and to restore some of their earlier intimacy, taking picnics out to Restless and enjoying each other’s company, their mutual sense of humour breaking any ice which had existed.

  It was all too short. Although Daphne thought that he was still far from fit, Boy returned to the division on 16 March and began a series of meetings preparatory to leaving for Algiers. On 28 March he was briefed by the VCIGS, Lieutenant General Nye, under whose orders he was to go. He lunched that day with Lieutenant General Ira Eaker of the US Eighth Air Force and with Eisenhower’s successor in London, Lieutenant General Andrews, and on the following morning he flew from Hendon down to Portreath, where he met his small party for the journey ahead.

  Chapter 14

  Adviser (1943)

  Boy travelled to North Africa wearing a new hat. As far back as June 1942 he had been making representations both to the War Office and to GHQ Home Forces that his responsibilities as the Airborne Division’s GOC went far beyond those of a normal divisional commander. In particular, he was responsible for much of the general development activity of the airborne forces and acted as an adviser on airborne matters to superior HQs. In August he submitted a paper on the subject to the War Office, which was in turn passed to a committee headed by the VCIGS. With no progress by early October, Boy went to see Brooke and persuaded him that it would be necessary to set up a separate Airborne Forces HQ , which would take over the advisory work in all theatres of war and assume responsibility for the Airborne Forces Depot at Hardwick and any development and experimental work deemed necessary.

  GHQ Home Forces was in partial agreement with the proposal. It recognized the need to separate certain responsibilities from those of the divisional commander, but considered that these would be best run by a small staff within Home Forces itself. Boy felt strongly that this was not the right solution, but there the matter rested at the end of the year. Once again, it was the Casablanca Conference which proved the catalyst for change. The mobilization of what was now called 1 Airborne Division for active service in the Mediterranean, the agreement in principle to raise a second division, the request from Allied Forces HQ for assistance in planning the invasion of Sicily and the formation of a new development centre all pointed to the desirability of a new Airborne Forces HQ.

  It was thus as Major General Airborne Forces and Airborne Adviser to the Supreme Allied Commander, Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) that Boy set out once again.1 Hopkinson, who had been sent to Algiers to represent Boy during the latter’s sick leave,2 returned to assume command of 1 Airborne Division. Leaving Walch behind to set up the new HQ at Brigmerston House, Boy took with him Nigel Norman, now promoted to Air Commodore, and two staff officers.

  After an overnight stay in Gibraltar, the party landed at Maison Blanche airfield outside Algiers on 31 March. For the next three weeks, Boy and Norman had a hectic schedule. On their first day they met Eisenhower and Major General Charles Gairdner, General Alexander’s Chief of Staff at Force 141, the overall planning organization for Operation ‘Husky’, the invasion of Sicily. They then flew on consecutive days to meet Alexander himself at his HQ in Tunisia, Air Chief Marshal Tedder and General Spaatz of the USAAF in Constantine, Mark Clark in Oujda and finally Montgomery at Eighth Army’s Tac HQ near Gabes.

  Boy had two immediate priorities, to find out what tasks were being planned for the airborne forces in ‘Husky’ and to make arrangements for the arrival of 1 Airborne Division, which was expected early in May. On 9 April, he was formally appointed as Eisenhower’s Adviser on Airborne Training & Operations, with orders to establish a s
mall HQ for planning and liaison, in which role he would also have some oversight of the training and administration of the US airborne troops, who were expected to land in North Africa at much the same time as their British colleagues.

  On the next day Boy and Norman left Algiers for Cairo, where they arrived two days later after an overnight stop at Tripoli. Montgomery had established Force 545 there, his own planning staff for the Eighth Army element of ‘Husky’, led by one of his two corps commanders for the operation, Boy’s old friend ‘Bimbo’ Dempsey. After a day of meetings in Cairo, the two men flew on again, this time to Palestine to inspect 4 Parachute Brigade, which was due to join 1 Airborne Division on its arrival in the Mediterranean, and to agree its future role with the commander, Brigadier Shan Hackett.

  The evolution of 4 Parachute Brigade had been quite different from its UK based equivalents. Nearly two years earlier, the joint paper from the War Office and the Air Ministry had proposed that both a parachute and an airlanding brigade should be formed in the Middle East, just as in the United Kingdom, but this had proved impossible to implement from the manpower available in the theatre, the only one in which the British Army was in constant contact with the enemy. The solution was to bring from India 151st Parachute Battalion, which had been formed there in late 1941 out of volunteers from infantry battalions in the country. Renumbered 156th Parachute Battalion, it had been well trained and was now based at Ramat David, near the Brigade HQ at Nazareth in Northern Palestine.3 A decision had also been taken to raise 10th Parachute Battalion from volunteers in the Middle East, although this was substantially untrained. To bring the brigade up to full strength, 11th Parachute Battalion was in the course of being formed.

  Boy had met Shan Hackett shortly before he left for Algiers, when the latter had visited 1 Airborne Division in the UK for a week. Hackett had had an eventful war, fighting with the Transjordan Frontier Force in Syria and with his own regiment, the 8th Hussars, in the Western Desert, where he had been wounded at Gazala. After a short period as GSO1 Raiding Forces, he was promoted and ordered to form the new brigade. He already had a reputation as a highly capable officer, but his relationship with Boy would always be more distant than those of some of the longer standing members of 1 Airborne Division.

  After two days in Palestine, Boy and Norman returned to Cairo for some further, more detailed planning with Dempsey and his staff. They then flew to Malta, where they stayed with the Governor, Boy’s fellow Grenadier, Lord Gort, now a field marshal. Boy was particularly keen to see Sicily for himself and arranged with the AOC-in-C, Air Marshal Sir Keith Park, to take a flight over the invasion area in a Beaufighter.4 He spent two and a half hours on the mission, reconnoitring the proposed dropping and landing zones, and was encouraged by the ease with which features could be picked up from the air.

  Boy and Norman arrived back in Algiers on 19 April and spent the remainder of their visit at AFHQ , working on detailed plans and administrative arrangements, during which time some differences between Forces 141 and 545 came to light, requiring the plans to be recast. Hopkinson and the advanced elements of 1 Airborne Division arrived on 26 April, to be fully briefed on all the decisions which had been taken and on 1 May Boy and Norman took off again for England, arriving there two days later, after being delayed by bad weather in Gibraltar.

  Boy’s priority on his return was to ensure that everything was in place for the formation of 6 Airborne Division. Gale had been appointed the GOC and arrived at Syrencote House a few days later. He had done an excellent job on behalf of the Airborne Forces at the War Office, where the Directorate of Air had been recently greatly strengthened by the upgrading of the Director to a major general’s rank and the appointment to the post of Kenneth Crawford – invariably called by his forename initials KN – who was to make a significant impact there for much of the rest of the war. Crawford was well known to Boy, having served previously as BGS Home Forces.

  6 Airborne Division experienced some of the same frustrations as its now departed forerunner, but its build-up was significantly quicker and many of the equipment problems had been solved. Moreover, by that time both planes and gliders were becoming more readily available. The core of the division was 3 Parachute Brigade, which had remained behind when 1 Airborne Division left for North Africa, although it had been severely depleted by providing replacements for 1 Parachute Brigade’s casualties. It did at least have the benefit of an experienced commander, James Hill. 6 Airlanding Brigade and 5 Parachute Brigade, the latter not raised until July, were both new formations, comprising existing infantry battalions which required training from scratch: neither of their commanders, Hugh Kindersley and Nigel Poett, had previous airborne experience. Gale, however, was helped by having a leavening of officers on his staff who had served in 1 Airborne Division or the Directorate of Air.

  One major decision, taken jointly by Boy and Gale very early on, was that the members of the new division would wear exactly the same Pegasus badge as those in 1 Airborne. Gale subscribed wholeheartedly to Boy’s view that the airborne forces formed part of one family and that there should be no distinction between them.

  With trusted men in the key airborne positions in the UK, Gale at 6 Airborne Division and Crawford at the War Office, Boy now considered himself free to devote time to his other function, as adviser to Eisenhower on the airborne role in Operation ‘Husky’. After snatching a few days leave in Fowey, he took off again for North Africa on 19 May. His journey came in the aftermath of a personal and professional shock, the death of Nigel Norman, who was the only man killed when the Hudson in which he was flying crashed shortly after take-off. Waiting to fly himself, Boy scribbled a note to Daphne on the back of a bank statement. ‘His death’ he wrote ‘is an absolute tragedy for our affairs and I honestly don’t know how we’ll replace him.’5 Norman had been his confidant since the early days of the Dungeon Party and had become a close friend and companion: he was, to that extent, irreplaceable. Boy had to break the news by telephone to Lady Norman, who said that she had feared and expected this moment for seventeen years, ever since they had married.

  One of the perks of Boy’s new job was the allocation to him by Eisenhower of his personal Dakota, which had also conveyed him on his earlier trip. It had an American crew, Joe Beck as pilot and George Denny as navigator, and in accordance with USAAF custom they had painted on its nose the plane’s name, Boy’s Boys. The party, including Walch and Brian Urquhart, stopped off at Gibraltar, Urquhart noting that ‘As usual, the admiral, the Governor-General, and everyone else of consequence had been to school with, played polo with, sailed with or fought in World War I with Browning.’6

  Boy’s staff was established within Force 141 at La Marsa, outside Algiers. The allied airborne forces had been gathering since he had been away, with 1 Airborne Division concentrating in its training area near Mascara, south-east of Oran. 2 Parachute Brigade had arrived even before the end of his previous visit, 1 Parachute Brigade moved from Tunisia in early May and the convoy bringing 1 Airlanding Brigade docked just after Boy’s return. 4 Parachute Brigade was due from Palestine in the first week of June. The American airborne contingent had also arrived in the shape of 82 Airborne Division, which was located further west near Oujda.

  The wisdom of appointing an overall coordinator was now apparent, as there were numerous HQs involved in planning for ‘Husky’. At the top there was Eisenhower’s AFHQ in Algiers. Initially Alexander’s 15th Army Group, which had absorbed the staff of Force 141, was close to AFHQ , but it subsequently moved to Tunis. Eighth Army still had its planners in Egypt, whilst George Patton’s US Seventh Army’s HQ was in Morocco. The air and naval HQs were likewise dispersed, so Boy had a lot of travelling to do and a formidable job of reconciling conflicting interests.

  In this he was only partially successful, due to the constraints of available resources and notably planes and gliders. The latter posed a particular difficulty for the British. The lack of suitable tugs meant that very few Horsas had
reached the theatre and it was necessary for the airlanding brigade to use American Waco Hadrians, on which it and the glider pilots had to be hastily retrained. The planes for use as glider tugs and to carry parachutists were to come substantially from XII US Troop Carrier Command, whose pilots had no experience of such operations and virtually none of night flying. Their allocation to the Americans and the British was in Boy’s hands and he fell foul of both parties.

  Boy got off to a particularly bad start with Matthew Ridgway, Commanding General of 82 Airborne Division, a down-to-earth soldier who brooked no interference with his command. Ridgway considered that Boy had a patronizing attitude towards the Americans. This was a miniature version of a scenario which was being played out across the allied forces in North Africa, in which the British were apt to point to the relative lack of experience of the Americans, whilst the Americans were quick to respond that the British had little to be proud of in their conduct of the war thus far. Whilst Eisenhower was able to rise above this rivalry, Alexander had offended the Americans some months before by his critical response to their performance at Kasserine, Montgomery was equally dismissive of their capabilities and, on the other side, Clark, Patton and Bradley, whilst not explicitly anglophobic, were deeply suspicious of their allies and wont to seek advantage for the American side at all times.

  Boy, for his part, believed that he had the full authority of Eisenhower and Alexander and was inclined to use this when a more diplomatic approach might have paid dividends. The differences between him and Ridgway began over aircraft, where there were not enough Dakotas to satisfy both airborne divisions. In Ridgway’s words: ‘A running argument developed with General Browning as to how these planes were to be allocated between my division and the British 1st Airborne Division. I also began to feel that General Browning, from his post at Supreme Headquarters, was in a position to exert undue influence, both on the allocation of aircraft to American airborne troops and on their tactical employment.’7