Commando General

by Richard B Mead

  At nightfall the two Commandos were relieved by troops from 138 Brigade and withdrawn into reserve, 2 Commando in Salerno and 41 RM Commando in Vietri. The Special Service Brigade was given responsibility for the defence of the Castle Hill area immediately north of Salerno, with two companies of the 6th Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment, a company of the 138 Brigade Support Group and 272 Field Company RE under command.

  D+5, 14 September, turned out to be the quietest day of the battle for the Special Service Brigade, although the two Commandos remained on stand-to throughout, as the position of X Corps was still far from secure. The brigade’s positions, especially in Salerno itself, remained under fire from the hills and there was occasional infiltration by German patrols. Although no further casualties were sustained, few of the men got any real rest.

  On the following afternoon Bob was summoned to an urgent conference, to hear that the positions of 167 Brigade, part of 56 Division, in the hills to the east of the main road to Avellino, were being seriously threatened. Lorries arrived to take both the Commandos to the village of Mercatello along the coast, where Brigadier Firth of 167 Brigade explained to Bob and his COs that a critical situation had developed around two features known as White Cross Hill and the Pimple; 41 RM Commando was ordered to carry out an attack to clear the hills west of the Pimple, whilst 2 Commando secured the road to the south. The operation began at 17.30, when 41 RM Commando moved forward accompanied by a troop of Sherman tanks. Although these were all halted, the Commando took its objective with only modest casualties. An hour later, 2 Commando moved off, advancing in parallel troop columns, each of which shouted ‘Commando’ to maintain contact with each other. It returned to its starting position after midnight, bringing with it 136 German prisoners, which was more than the whole of 56 Division had captured to that date. Jack Churchill brought back over forty himself and threatened to kill them all if any attempted to escape.

  No sooner had 2 Commando returned than it was ordered back again, this time to take the Pimple itself and the adjacent village of Piegolelli.2 The latter was captured after close fighting between the houses, and two troops were detached to take the Pimple, which the Germans had occupied in strength. The troops attacked up the hill but incurred serious casualties, including ‘Morny’3 Wellington, who was killed by a grenade.

  When dawn broke on 16 September, the two Commandos were holding a line from Piegolelli to the east of White Cross Hill, but the Germans had occupied the Pimple and the ridge to its west in great strength and all attempts that day to dislodge them were fought off. In the hours of darkness on the following morning 41 RM Commando was ordered to assault and capture the Pimple, but the supporting artillery barrage, instead of falling on the Germans, landed squarely in the middle of the Commando, causing many casualties, including Teddy Edwards, the acting CO, who was mortally wounded. By dawn the Commando had been forced to withdraw to its original position. It was no longer fit for combat and was relieved on the following night.

  In the meantime, 2 Commando had been keeping up a steady fire with the 4.2” mortars and heavy machine guns of the Americans and a selection of captured German machine guns, all of which took a significant toll on the enemy. An attack by an infantry brigade was mounted against both the Pimple and White Cross Hill with very limited success, but when another attack was made on 19 September, the Germans were found to have abandoned their positions.

  By that time both Commandos had been withdrawn to a rest area near Mercatello. The battle was not yet over, but their part in it was at an end. In ten days of action 12 officers and 59 other ranks had been killed, 15 officers and 207 other ranks wounded, and one officer and 19 other ranks evacuated sick, whilst two officers and 31 other ranks were missing: therefore, they had suffered 346 casualties out of a total establishment of 750, a rate of attrition of 40 per cent.4 When General McCreery paid the survivors a visit on 22 September he had all ranks assembled so that he could not only explain how they had fitted in to the battle, but also thank them for their hard fighting and sacrifice. He went on to say that they had always looked like soldiers and that the effect of this on the morale of others had been incalculable.

  Bob was no longer there, having been ordered by Mountbatten to fly back to England as soon as circumstances permitted. With 2 and 41 RM Commandos now requiring a period of recuperation and reinforcement, there was no prospect of further action for this part of the brigade in the foreseeable future. He was also confident that Durnford-Slater was entirely capable of looking after 3 and 40 RM Commandos and the SRS, which, after being used for some minor landings following BAYTOWN, were shortly to be transferred to the Adriatic coast to support Eighth Army’s operations there. He handed over command to Tom Churchill and flew out from an airstrip on the beach on 21 September, accompanied by Philip Dunne.5

  Bob arrived back in England on 24 September, the day of the announcement of the award to him of the Distinguished Service Order for his leadership in Sicily.6 There were many letters of congratulation, but probably none was more welcome than that from Haydon, who made the point that Bob had up to then been hard done by in terms of visible recognition. Haydon, who clearly wanted to make peace between them, went on to write:

  The present difficulties through which we are passing we shall laugh at in the future, but at the time they happen they loom large and assume proportions which are not really justified. Five minutes’ conversation would, I think, put them right and this I hope we are going to have.7

  He was, of course, referring to the vexatious issue of the reorganization of the Special Service Brigade and the RM Division, which had yet to be finally resolved. The reason why Mountbatten had wanted Bob back in the UK so urgently was that he himself was leaving COHQ. The ‘very staggering piece of news’, to which the CCO had referred in his letter to Bob of 24 August, was his appointment as Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia, and he was in London for briefings and to put together his staff before leaving for India in early October. There was thus just over a week to put matters right, and in the first place Bob’s request to be relieved of his command was rejected. Mountbatten was now keen to find a solution which would retain him in the Commando organization.

  Matters had moved on, albeit relatively slowly, whilst Bob had been occupied on AVALANCHE. In particular, an important meeting had taken place on 8 September chaired by Wildman-Lushington, the other participants being Sturges, Haydon, Lovat and the senior staff officers from the Special Service Brigade HQ. One of Mountbatten’s requirements as SACSEA was a Commando force, and it now appeared that three or four Commandos would be sent out to India by the end of the year. With 9 Commando shortly to leave for the Mediterranean, most of the new RM Commandos yet to complete their training and both 12 and 14 Commando scheduled to be disbanded to provide replacements for losses, it seemed that the requirement would have to be met by Army Commandos, of which 1, 4, 5 and 6 were still in the UK. The requirements for Operation OVERLORD, the invasion of France, would then have to be met entirely by RM Commandos. Lovat, however, pointed out that an additional Army Commando might be required for the Mediterranean, in which case at least one RM Commando would have to be sent to India.

  As far as the structure of the new Special Service Group was concerned, Haydon told the meeting that the organization of the Army Commandos into two brigades of four Commandos each, commanded by Colonels, had not been well received by the War Office, but it was agreed that, as this structure met the intentions of the CCO and the Chiefs of Staff, any alternative should be resisted by both COHQ and the AGRM. However, Wildman-Lushington pointed out that a number of anomalies would arise if one Brigadier was to command two separate forces in the Mediterranean and India/Burma. Haydon was asked to go back to Mountbatten to explain the difficulties.

  On a more positive note for the Army Commandos, it was agreed that they should now have five of the thirteen staff positions in the Special Service Group, an increase of two over the number reported by Sooby to Bob, and that these wou
ld include both the GSO2s on the establishment. Moreover, the positions of AA&QMG, the senior administrative officer, and GSO3 (Air), would be held by Army officers currently on the strength of the RM Division.

  Bob’s proposal for a Holding Commando had been accepted by all parties and only awaited signing off by the War Establishment Committee. It would, however, for the time being, have both an Army and an RM Wing.

  The main problem was the shortage of men in the Army Commandos, put by Lovat at 32 officers and 814 men, without accounting for losses in Sicily and Italy. It was agreed that a letter on recruitment should be drafted for the CCO to send to the Adjutant General at the War Office and that, if an unfavourable reply was received, he should take the matter up with the CIGS.

  Following the meeting, Sturges remained unhappy about two issues. The first was the effective command of the Special Service Group, of which he was currently only GOC (Designate), confirmation of which was still awaited from Mountbatten, largely because the CCO was waiting to discuss the situation with Bob. Sturges urged Wildman-Lushington to persuade Mountbatten that this should take effect on 1 October, on which date the new HQ would open at Pinner. Secondly, he felt that the next reinforcement to the Mediterranean after 9 Commando should not be an Army Commando but 43 RM Commando, which had completed its training.

  This is how matters stood when Bob reappeared. He was now to embark on a series of meetings with all the parties, but primarily with Mountbatten. There were two major issues with which Bob was concerned: the structure of the Special Service Group and future recruitment into the Army Commandos. On the second of these the Adjutant General in the UK was to prove a difficult nut to crack, but Bob had made considerable progress as regards the Mediterranean theatre whilst still in Algiers, where he had discussed the issue with General Sir Harold Alexander, the C-in-C of the Fifteenth Army Group. Encouraged by the enthusiasm for the Commandos of Montgomery, Dempsey and Leese, he submitted a scheme to Alexander whereby reinforcements could be sought not only in Eighth Army but also in Ninth and Tenth Armies in the Levant and Iraq/Persia. The two latter armies were by this time little more than skeleton formations and Alexander had no responsibility for them. He did, however, permit recruitment anywhere in Fifteenth Army Group, which was a major development, of which 2 Commando was the first unit to take advantage.

  It was the reorganization which remained the most important issue. Mountbatten managed to persuade Bob that the full support of the Royal Marines was the only solution to providing enough Commandos to satisfy the demands of three theatres of war. He also explained that the structure of two brigades commanded by colonels under a single brigadier was unpopular not only with the War Office but also with almost everyone else, and was only being entertained to humour Bob himself. Bob, on the other hand, maintained that the Army Commandos, with their very different traditions and conditions of service, should have a senior representative to look after their interests, and that the brigade commanders under the alternative structure would have insufficient time and authority to do this.

  The solution, which was to prove acceptable to all parties, was very simple. There would still be four brigades, but instead of comprising either Army or RM Commandos, which would only exaggerate their differences, they would include one or more of each, as this was by now seen to have had worked well in Italy. There would be two Army Brigadiers, Lovat and Durnford-Slater, and two RM Brigadiers, Wilfred Nonweiler and B. W. ‘Jumbo’ Leicester. Most pertinently, Bob himself would be appointed Deputy Commander of the Special Service Group, with responsibility, among other things, for looking after the particular interests of the Army Commandos.

  As far as the allocations of units were concerned, 4 and 6 Commandos were to remain in 1 Special Service Brigade under Lovat in the UK, where they would be joined in due course by 3 Commando from the Mediterranean, with Peter Young succeeding Durnford-Slater as its CO, and by 45 RM Commando once it had finished its training. Durnford-Slater was to take over 2 Special Service Brigade in Italy, retaining 2 and 40 RM Commandos and receiving 9 and 43 RM Commandos, whilst 3 Special Service Brigade was to comprise 1, 5, 42 RM and 44 RM Commandos under Nonweiler and depart for India by the end of the year. Leicester’s 4 Special Service Brigade would be the last to become operational, since 41 RM Commando, once it had returned from Italy, would require significant recruitment after its losses at Salerno and 46 and 47 RM Commandos were yet to complete their training. Its sole Army unit would be 10 (IA) Commando.

  The Commando Basic Training Centre, the Commando Mountain Warfare Camp, the Operational Holding Commando and 2 Special Boat Section were to come under the direct control of the Special Service Group. Other than the arrival of the newly raised 48 RM Commando in 4 Special Service Brigade in the late spring of 1944 and the placing of 10 (IA) Commando directly under the Special Service Group, this structure turned out to be sufficiently robust to last for the remainder of the War.

  Bob had come to the pragmatic conclusion that it was time to accept the inevitable. His role in the new organization satisfied his concerns about the Army Commandos, and he got on well personally with Sturges and felt that he could work with him. Moreover, he had never harboured any antipathy towards the Royal Marines; indeed, it had been his wish to recruit them into 8 Commando in large numbers in 1940, believing that this was their natural role.

  It was Bob’s intention to return to the Mediterranean at the end of October to settle down the new arrivals there, by which time he hoped to have solved the Army recruiting issues in the UK. By 18 October he was able to claim one success on that front, when the Director of Staff Duties informed him that the Army Commandos were to receive the same priority for recruitment as the Airborne Forces; but he still lacked carte blanche to seek volunteers. Before that happened, however, his career was to be transformed in an entirely unexpected way.

  Chapter 18

  COHQ

  When Mountbatten flew out of Northolt on 2 October 1943 on his way to India, he had sorted out the leadership and composition of the Special Service Group, but had left Combined Operations HQ in a state of flux. Not only had no successor been appointed, but it was also clear that considerable changes would be required in its organization.

  It will be recalled that COHQ had originally been set up in 1940 under the then Adjutant-General RM, Lieutenant General Bourne, and that he was replaced shortly afterwards by Sir Roger Keyes. Keyes saw himself very much as holding full responsibility for all combined operations, reporting directly to the Prime Minister. Whereas Bourne had been happy to operate through representatives in the Admiralty, the War Office and the Air Ministry, Keyes insisted on having his immediate subordinates, of whichever service, in his own HQ and accountable personally to him. For these and other reasons he had a less than cordial relationship with the Chiefs of Staff.

  Although the numbers at COHQ itself remained small, Keyes did take under his direct control one established facility, the Inter-Service Training and Development Centre at Fort Cumberland, near Portsmouth. At the beginning of the War the ISTDC was the only organization involved in any way in combined operations. It had been set up in the summer of 1938 specifically to study all aspects of assaults from the sea, including methods of landing and the arms and equipment needed to support them. The first Commandant was Captain L. E. H. Maund RN, who was supported by middle-ranking officers from the other two services. Both Maund and the Army representative, Major M. W. M. McLeod, would go on to have long and distinguished careers in Combined Operations, not only in the UK but also in the Middle East and India.

  The ISTDC made some highly important recommendations which had a major impact on the development of the techniques for seaborne landings. These included the adoption of the LCA as the principal infantry landing craft, the development of the many other types of more specialized landing ships and craft and the conversion of merchant ships into LSIs. It also looked at the problems associated with landing on defended beaches and developed a number of solutions. It was not, h
owever, in spite of its name, a training establishment, and one of Keyes’ first actions on succeeding Bourne was to set up the Combined Training Centre at Inverary, where the theory could be translated into practice, the various types of ships and craft tried out in realistic conditions and the newly established Commandos trained in their use. Its success was such that McLeod, who had succeeded Maund as Commandant of the ISTDC, was sent to set up another CTC at Kabrit on the Bitter Lakes in Egypt, where Bob subsequently attended a course.

  By the late summer of 1941 Keyes, as far as the Chiefs of Staff were concerned, was getting above his station. His direct access to the Prime Minister on Combined Operations matters was a major bone of contention, as was his proposal that COHQ should have responsibility for the planning of and training for major operations as well as raids. They decided that his wings should be clipped and formed up jointly to Churchill, who acceded to their request by downgrading his role from Director to Adviser and making it clear that only the Chiefs of Staff could be responsible for advising the Defence Committee and the War Cabinet. Keyes resigned in protest and Mountbatten was appointed.

  Astonishingly, within months Mountbatten had obtained all that Keyes had demanded and more. His title was upgraded from Adviser back to Director and then to Chief of Combined Operations, and he was given a seat on the Chief of Staffs’ Committee and direct access to Churchill. Moreover, he increased the establishment of COHQ significantly, setting up four main departments: planning, intelligence, training and communications.

  Raiding came under Mountbatten’s direct control, but it became increasingly clear to him that COHQ should also play a major role in the large Allied landings which, following the entry of the United States into the War, would have to be undertaken in future. Four further CTCs were subsequently established in the UK, at Dorlin House and Castle Toward in Argyll, at Largs and at Dundonald, the last of these also housing the new Combined Signals School. CTCs were also set up at Mahd, Cocanada and Kharakvasla in India.