General ‘Boy': The Life of Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Browning
Page 39
During operation ‘MARKET’ the brigade was unfortunate in being dropped in parts owing to the weather. However, during this period of operation ‘MARKET’ great difficulties were being overcome hourly by all formations of the Second Army in their efforts to reach the 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem. This officer proved himself to be quite incapable of appreciating the urgent nature of the operation, and continually showed himself to be both argumentative and loathe to play his full part in the operation unless everything was done for him and his brigade.
Subsequently, when the 1st Airborne Division had been withdrawn, and the Polish Parachute Brigade Group reverted to my command South of the R. Waal, this officer worried both me and my staff (who were at that time fighting a very difficult battle to keep the corridor open from inclusive Nijmegen to Eindhoven) about such things as two or three lorries to supplement his transport. I was forced finally to be extremely curt to this officer, and ordered him to carry out his orders from then on without query or obstruction.
Both Commander 30 Corps and Commander 43 Division will bear out my criticism of the attitude of this officer throughout the operation.
Major-General Sosabowski has undoubtedly, during the three years in which I have been connected with him, done a very great amount for the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade Group under disappointing circumstances. He was mainly responsible for the whole of the raising, organization and training of the brigade. However, this good record cannot be allowed to interfere with the present and future efficiency of the brigade.
I am forced, therefore, to recommend that General Sosabowski be employed elsewhere, and that a younger, more flexibly minded and cooperative officer be made available to succeed him.
There are, to my knowledge, two possible candidates now serving with the brigade. The first is Lieut-Col. S. Jachnik, who is at present Deputy Commander. This officer has had practically no opportunity to display his powers owing to the somewhat overbearing nature of General Sosabowski’s personality. The appointment of this officer would, in my opinion, be essentially in the nature of an experiment.
The second candidate is Major M. Tonn, who commands 1 Parachute Battalion. This officer has trained his battalion well and, in my opinion and in the opinion of the G.S.O.1. Liaison (Airborne) Lieut-Col. Stevens, he possesses the requisite drive and administrative ability to fulfill the appointment.
However, this appointment must remain largely a matter for the Polish Army to make, and it will probably be better in the long run if new blood be brought in.
Finally, I wish to emphasise again that I consider Major-General Sosabowski is a knowledgeable and efficient soldier and up to the average of his rank, but owing to his outlook, temperament and inability to cooperate he should be given a change of employment.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
(Sgd) F. A. M. Browning
Commander Airborne Corps.
Abbreviations
AA Anti-Aircraft
AAA Amateur Athletics Association
AA&QMG Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster-General
ABDACOM American British Dutch & Australian Command
ADC Aide-de-Camp
ADMS Assistant Director of Medical Services
ADOS Assistant Director of Ordnance Services
AFDAG Airborne Forward Delivery Airfield Group
AFHQ Allied Forces Headquarters
AFS Auxiliary Fire Service
ALFSEA Allied Land Forces South-East Asia
AOC Air Officer Commanding
AOC-in-C Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief
ATS Auxiliary Territorial Service
BEF British Expeditionary Force
BGS Brigadier General Staff
BOA British Olympic Association
CAS Chief of the Air Staff
CAS(B) Civil Affairs Service (Burma)
CB Companion of the Order of the Bath
CBE Commander of the Order of the British Empire
CDC Civil Defence Corps
CIGS Chief of the Imperial General Staff
C-in-C Commander-in-Chief
CLE Central Landing Establishment
CO Commanding Officer
COS Chief of Staff
COSSAC Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (Designate)
CRE Chief Royal Engineer
DAAG Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General
DA&QMG Deputy Adjutant & Quartermaster-General
DADOS Deputy Assistant Director of Ordnance Services
DAQMG Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General
DCIGS Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff
DDME Deputy Director of Mechanical Engineering
DDOS Deputy Director of Ordnance Services
DSD Director of Staff Duties
DSO Distinguished Service Order
FAAA First Allied Airborne Army
GC Gentleman Cadet
GCB Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
GCMG Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
GCVO Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order
GHQ General Headquarters
GOC General Officer Commanding
GOC-in-C General Officer Commanding-in-Chief
GSO1 General Staff Officer Grade 1
GSO2 General Staff Officer Grade 2
GSO3 General Staff Officer Grade 3
HQ Headquarters
KCB Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath
KBE Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire
LAA Light Anti-Aircraft
MBE Member of the Order of the British Empire
MC Military Cross
MCC Marylebone Cricket Club
MFV Motor Fishing Vessel
MI Military Intelligence – as in MI1(C) or MI6
NEI Netherlands East Indies
NPFA National Playing Fields Association
OSS Office of Strategic Services
OTC Officers Training Corps
NCAC Northern Combat Area Command
NCO Non-Commissioned Officer
NSL National Service League
PTS Parachute Training School
RA Royal Artillery
RAF Royal Air Force
RAMC Royal Army Medical Corps
RAOC Royal Army Ordnance Corps
RAPWI Repatriation of Prisoners of War & Internees
RASC Royal Army Service Corps
REME Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers
RMC Royal Military College
RN Royal Navy
RNAS Royal Naval Air Station
RYFC Royal Fowey Yacht Club
SACSEA Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia
SAS Special Air Service
SEAC South-East Asia Command
SHAEF Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force
SIS Secret Intelligence Service (also MI6)
SO Staff Officer
SOE Special Operations Executive
VCIGS Vice-Chief of the Imperial General Staff
USAAF United States Army Air Force
VE-Day Victory in Europe Day
Notes
Chapter 1: Family (1335–1896)
1. John Maynard Keynes, the British Treasury representative at the Peace Conference and deeply involved with reparations, was apparently very critical of Montague Browning’s tough stance.
2. The Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom is the deputy to the Lord High Admiral. From the seventeenth century the latter office was held simultaneously by the First Lord of the Admiralty: since 1964, when the office of First Lord was abolished, that of Lord High Admiral has been vested in the monarch.
3. The arms can be seen on Browning family memorials in the parish churches of both Melbury Sampford and Coaley.
4. The Alt House still survives: whilst damaged by the atomic bomb in 1945, it was refurbished and is now part of Glover Garden, a tourist attraction in Nagasaki.
Chapter 2: T
ommy (1896–1914)
1. At Eton houses are named after the incumbent housemaster.
2. His original preference was to follow his uncle into the Royal Navy, but it turned out that he was colour blind, which made him unacceptable.
3. His grandfather, Montague Charles Browning, had been President of Pop in his day.
4. Later 1st Viscount Chandos: he was the nephew of the headmaster.
Chapter 3: Boy (1914–1916)
1. It would not be until January 1916 that the Military Service Act introduced conscription.
2. In 1939, these institutions were closed in their old form and immediately reopened as Officer Cadet Training Units, whose graduates only received Emergency Commissions.
3. Collie Knox People of Quality, p. 76.
4. Later Field Marshal the Earl of Cavan, Field Marshal the Viscount Gort, General Sir Andrew Thorne and Lieutenant General the Lord Freyberg.
5. Notes written for the author prior to an interview in 2008.
6. Churchill admired Jeffreys greatly and was instrumental in having a barony conferred on him in 1952: having retired from the Army in 1938, Jeffreys served as Conservative MP for Petersfield from 1941 to 1951.
7. Some forty years later it was the first thing he mentioned when Boy’s eldest daughter, Tessa, was introduced to him.
8. On the strength of this attachment, it was the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards which provided the pallbearers at Churchill’s funeral in 1965.
Chapter 4: Trenches (1916–1918)
1. By this time, companies went into action with a maximum of 3 officers and with only 32 other ranks per platoon: this was a reaction to the wholesale losses of the early battles, in which whole battalions had been nearly wiped out.
2. Tanks were first used at the Somme, but in small numbers and not to great effect.
3. The 18th Bengal Lancers became the 19th King George V’s Own Lancers on amalgamation with another Indian cavalry regiment in 1922: it remains the 19th Lancers in the Army of Pakistan and retains the battle honour of Cambrai 1917. To commemorate the action the Grenadiers presented to the Lancers an inscribed bugle, receiving in return a silver statuette of a mounted Bengal Lancer.
4. Westmacott later wrote: ‘I think that Boy deserved his award far more than I did mine, because he had to cope with all the very nasty fighting and sniping that was going on in the wood for five hours, while I was digging in the outside.’ (Westmacott, Memories, p.48)
5. Wigram was promoted to Private Secretary in 1931 and created the 1st Baron Wigram in 1935; both his son, Neville, and his grandson, Andrew, served in the Grenadiers.
6. Shortly before this, Boy went on a short leave to England to receive his DSO from the King.
7. Letter to Grace Browning 13.10.18.
8. Later the 3rd Lord Glanusk.
9. Gort won the VC in this action.
Chapter 5: Peace (1918–1924)
1. As a result of his association with the SIS, he was involved in the leaking of the ‘Zinoviev Letter’ to the Daily Mail, purportedly written from the President of the Comintern to the Communist Party of Great Britain, advocating agitation. Freddie believed it was genuine, but it was subsequently revealed as a forgery. It was nevertheless probably instrumental in Ramsay MacDonald’s defeat and the Conservative victory in the General Election of 1924.
2. It had been held in Hyde Park in each of the two previous years, when the King and all ranks wore service dress.
3. Royal Military College Magazine & Record Easter Term 1925.
4. Ibid.
5. The younger brother of Harold Alexander, later Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis.
6. Later Honorary Secretary of the International Amateur Athletics Federation.
7. One of the other team members was his cousin, George Browning, son of Bertie, who had been commissioned into the Grenadiers in 1921: he was to transfer into the Welsh Guards in 1938. George was the closest to Boy of all his various cousins and they saw a lot of one another in the 1920s. Boy also proposed George for membership of the South London Harriers.
8. In 1924 Burghley was still up at Cambridge, where he famously ran round the Great Court at Trinity College within the chiming of the noonday clock. He later joined the Grenadiers himself, becoming a close friend of Boy’s, but resigned his commission in 1929.
Chapter 6: Sandhurst (1924–1928)
1. M. Henniker, An Image of War, p.71.
2. Ruth Farquhar’s son, Colonel David Fanshawe, was himself Adjutant at Sandhurst and commanded thirteen Sovereign’s Parades in that capacity, without being at any time aware of his mother’s story!
3. Later Field Marshal Lord Milne of Salonika.
4. Later Field Marshal Sir James Cassels.
Chapter 7: Hiatus (1928–1931)
1. Jan was a rather tragic figure. She married in 1937, but committed suicide during the Second World War by throwing herself under a train. Her mother had also committed suicide.
2. Twiss, Browning & Hallowes became a significant part of International Distillers & Vintners when that company was created in the 1960s. In 1972 IDV was acquired by Grand Metropolitan, which in due course became Diageo.
3. Flaxley Abbey was originally founded in the 12th century but was dissolved by Henry VIII. That part which survived became the manor house, which was much changed in the 17th and 18th centuries, particularly after a fire in 1777. It remains a private residence.
Chapter 8: Daphne (1931–1932)
1. More properly known in the Brigade of Guards as ‘soldier-servant’, the original term, but ‘batman’ is widely understood and thus used throughout.
2. Daphne du Maurier, Myself When Young, p. 192.
3. Arthur Llewelyn Davies, Sylvia’s husband, died of cancer in 1907 and she succumbed to the same disease three years later, upon which Barrie adopted the Llewelyn Davies children.
4. Reed would go on to be a great film director, with a number of films to his credit before and during the Second World War, although his major successes, such as The Third Man, Our Man in Havana and Oliver!, came later.
5. Daphne letter to Maud Waddell, undated 1932.
6. According to Lord Carrington, it was rumoured that Boy had been saved from having to resign his commission by the King, who expressed the view that it would be a complete nonsense.
7. Gerald volunteered in 1918 at the age of 45 and joined the Irish Guards. He was a hopeless soldier and both he and the Army were relieved when the Armistice came.
Chapter 9: Marriage (1932–1939)
1. Daphne letter to Maud Waddell ?.7.32.
2. It seems that at one time she thought that the wedding present might be Ferryside, and was doubtless disappointed when this turned out not to be the case.
3. Richards was devoted to Boy, who spent time teaching his batman the skills and social graces which would go well beyond those demanded of a soldier and valet and equip him for a successful life in domestic service after the Army. The regard was mutual, Boy considering that Richards epitomized the best qualities of a Guardsman.
4. Daphne letter to Maud Waddell 14.5.35.
5. From 1928 onwards it had been War Office policy to station two Foot Guards battalions at a time in Egypt and Boy’s battalion was the last one from his regiment to go.
6. The battalion found a Guard of Honour when the coffin arrived in London from Sandringham and lined the streets for the funeral. Boy, like the other officers, stood watch over the coffin during the Lying-in-State.
7. Daphne letter to Maud Waddell 12.9.36.
8. Lord Carrington remembered being grateful that one of the other subalterns was so incompetent that he attracted most of Boy’s considerable wrath!
Chapter 10: Brigadier (1939–1941)
1. By a coincidence, Boy was sleeping in exactly the same street in Arras where he had been billeted at the time of the first day of the Hindenburg offensive in March 1918, being awakened by the sound of bombs where once he had heard shells.
2. Papers of Cap
tain L. C. R. Balding in the Imperial War Museum.
3. Richards had left the Army in 1934 at the conclusion of seven years service, but he and Lily stayed on with the Brownings until they left for Egypt: Richards was recalled from the Regular Reserve in August 1939, but was injured in France in 1940: later in the War he served in North Africa.