18. Davie (Ed.), The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh p.509.
19. The wife of the author Ian Fleming, and sister-in-law to Peter Fleming.
20. Davie (Ed.), The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh p.728.
21. Letter to Angie 2.7.55.
22. Papers of Major General F. C. C. Graham IWM.
23. Memoirs p.380.
24. Ibid. pp.380–1.
25. Messenger, Young and Rose, The Middle East Commandos p.93.
26. Memoirs p.388.
Chapter 12
1. Nicholls was killed in May 1942 whilst leading Chinese guerrillas behind Japanese lines.
2. DEFE 2/711B.
3. Unlike acting or temporary rank, which could and usually would be terminated on the expiry of a particular appointment, war substantive rank was to be held for as long as hostilities continued.
4. Not long after Bob’s return to the Middle East, Salisbury-Jones was appointed Head of the British Military Mission in South Africa, a wartime backwater. Repeated requests to be given a more active role eventually resulted in his appointment to Eisenhower’s staff at SHAEF in 1944.
5. Memoirs p.353.
6. Ibid. p.355.
7. Ibid. p.399.
8. Churchill was well ahead of events. It was not until 1 March 1942 that Bob was to attain the rank of acting Brigadier.
9. Churchill, The Grand Alliance p.721.
10. Ibid. pp.725–6.
11. Dreyer had retired from the Royal Navy and rejoined when war was declared. At the time he was Inspector of Merchant Navy Gunnery.
Chapter 13
1. Mather, When the Grass Stops Growing p.53.
2. Memoirs p.411.
3. Daly was taken prisoner during Operation CRUSADER.
4. Memoirs pp.410–1.
5. Letter from Bob to Angie 20.10.41.
6. Laycock Papers LHA 6/4.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Citation for the award of the Victoria Cross to Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Keyes WO 373/19/153.
11. He was later to say that he had lost a pound in weight for every day on the run.
12. She and her husband Dan, a fellow officer of Peter and Michael Laycock in the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, had been staying with the Laycocks in Torridon when war was declared.
13. The Arab name for Beda Littoria.
14. Ranfurly, To War with Whittaker p.118.
15. Letter from Bob to Angie 30.12.41.
Chapter 14
1. Mountbatten was also an Old Boy of Lockers Park but left well before Bob arrived.
2. Smallman Interview IWM.
3. 1 (Irvine), 3 (Largs), 4 (Troon), 6 (Saltcoats) and 12 (Ayr).
4. Letter from Bob to Angie 10.4.42.
5. Casa Maury was subsequently blamed for the poor intelligence on the German defences of Dieppe.
6. This was issued on 18 October 1942 and required all captured commandos to be executed. Some German generals, including Rommel, refused to obey it. Others were later charged with war crimes for having done so.
Chapter 15
1. He was to go on to serve in 2 Special Service Brigade in Italy and Yugoslavia, for which he was awarded a bar to the DSO which he had won in the Sudan in 1898!
2. Davie (Ed.), The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh p.529.
3. Laycock Papers LHA 4/20.
4. DEFE 2/1051.
5. Laycock Papers LHA 6/15.
6. In a letter dated 26 December 1942, Bob told Glendinning that he did not believe that Ken Trevor had the personality or drive to be a CO. He had clearly changed his mind, probably as a result of Trevor’s performance in North Africa. Later in the War Trevor was to win a DSO leading 1 Commando in Burma.
Chapter 16
1. Churchill, Commando Crusader p.74.
2. William Collins, chairman of the eponymous publishing house.
3. Laycock Papers LHA 6/20.
4. DEFE 2/1051.
5. Ibid.
6. He was known for the same reason to Churchill, who had been a cadet in No. 1 Company in the term behind Bob.
7. Lovat, March Past p.233.
8. DEFE 2/1051.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Laycock Papers LHA 6/21.
13. Ibid.
14. DEFE 2/1051.
15. Letter from Bob to Angie 21.8.43.
16. Letter from Bob to Angie 3.9.43.
17. Laycock Papers LHA 6/21.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Laycock Papers LHA 6/19.
Chapter 17
1. Landing Craft Infantry (Large), capable of carrying about 200 troops on to the beaches.
2. It is called Piegoletti in the war diaries. This is because there was a contour line running through the map across the double ls.
3. His nickname derived from the courtesy title of Earl of Mornington, which he used from his birth in 1912 until 1931, when his grandfather died and his father succeeded to the Dukedom, at which point he adopted the more senior courtesy title of Marquess of Douro. He himself had become Duke on the death of his father in 1941. He had no children and was succeeded himself by an uncle. Bob wrote a personal condolence letter to the Dowager Duchess, whom he knew socially.
4. These were the ‘final’ numbers provided in a letter of 30.9.43 to Haydon from Griff Hunt, who had recently returned to the brigade as Staff Captain. They differ from the brigade’s operations report and the 2 Commando war diary, in which the casualties total 367.
5. Dunne won a MC at Salerno.
6. Jack Churchill also received a DSO, in his case for his actions at Salerno, which was downgraded from the Victoria Cross for which Bob had recommended him.
7. Laycock Papers LHA 6/22.
Chapter 18
1. The battle was fictionalized in C. S. Forester’s The Ship.
2. Rejecting Churchill’s offer did no harm to the career of either man. Both became Admirals of the Fleet, McGrigor after serving as First Sea Lord.
3. Fergusson, The Watery Maze p.294.
4. Laycock Papers LHA 6/23.
5. Haydon went out to Italy to command an infantry brigade, but was promoted back to major general in 1944 as a member of the British Joint Services Mission in Washington.
6. Laycock Papers LHA 6/23.
7. The Sherwood Rangers sailed from Alexandria for the UK on 17 November, only days before Bob arrived in Egypt.
Chapter 19
1. DEFE 2/710.
2. Letter from Bob to his father 14.6.44.
3. In May 1944, outbound from Lisbon to Philadelphia, the Serpa Pinto had been stopped by a U-boat, whose captain demanded that the crew and passengers take to the boats, whilst he sought permission to sink the ship. This was denied and they all boarded again and continued their voyage.
4. Letter from Bob to Angie 14.9.44.
5. The rest of the Dutch troop had been attached to 1 Airborne Division for Operation MARKET GARDEN, in which they largely acted as interpreters.
6. Churchill returned to the UK and was later given command of an infantry brigade. He had a distinguished post-war career, becoming a major general in due course.
7. Letter from Bob to Angie 26.11.44. Not very long afterwards, the Auchinlecks divorced following Lady Auchinleck’s affair with her husband’s RAF counterpart, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Peirse.
8. Letter from Bob to Angie 3.2.45.
9. Ismay, The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay p.387.
Chapter 20
1. Letter from Lovat to Bob 5.6.45.
2. Laycock Private Papers.
3. Letter from Bob to Angie 17.7.45.
4. Memoirs p.226.
5. Ibid. p.227.
6. 30 Assault Unit was disbanded in 1946, but its name has been subsequently recognized in 30 Commando Information Exploitation Group, formed in 2010, whilst 43 Commando Fleet Protection Group, formed in 2011, has revived yet another of the former RM Commandos. Moreover, there are now
Army Commandos again, in the shape of 29 Commando Regiment RA and 24 Commando Engineer Regiment, all of whose officers and other ranks must pass the All Arms Commando Course.
7. Laycock Papers LHA 7/3.
8. There had long been antipathy between the two men, of which the major cause was an attempt by Tedder to have Montgomery sacked for his apparent lack of progress in Normandy.
9. Primmie Niven, Bob’s niece, had died following an accident earlier in the year.
10. Letter from Bob to Angie 1.12.46.
11. Letter from Mountbatten to Bob 18.6.46.
12. Letter from Sturges to Bob 14.6.45.
13. The figure of a commando soldier is one of three, the others being a submariner and an airborne soldier.
Chapter 21
1. By a strange coincidence the Saintes was commanded by Captain Desmond Dreyer, the son of the Admiral in whose company Bob had first visited Malta in 1941.
2. Interview 19.2.15.
3. Letter from Bob to Angie 4.11.56.
4. CO 967/352.
Chapter 22
1. Letter from Bob to Emma 22.3.60.
2. Letter from Bob to Emma 23.10.57.
3. Now Welbeck Defence Sixth Form College at Loughborough.
4. Now A (Sherwood Rangers) Squadron, Royal Yeomanry.
5. In 1960 Head had been created Viscount Head for political services.
6. Later given the title of Director SAS and currently called Director Special Forces.
7. Mintoff regained power in 1971 and Malta became a republic in 1974.
Chapter 23
1. Memoirs p.159.
2. Macpherson, Behind Enemy Lines p.67.
3. Letter from Bob to Martha 17.10.66.
4. Letter from Bob to Angie 2.7.55.
5. Ibid.
6. Laycock Papers LHA 6/24.
Joe Laycock, Bob’s father.
The Valhalla, Joe’s private clipper.
(L to R) Major General John French, Colonel Douglas Haig and Joe near Colenso during the Boer War.
Kitty Laycock, Bob’s mother.
Wiseton Hall.
Bob (right) at Eton.
Favourite pastimes: Hunting …
… and steeplechasing at Hawthorn Hill (Bob on the left).
The Herzogin Cecilie.
Getting in sail.
The main deck, looking aft.
The Officers of the Blues, 1935. Bob, the Adjutant, seated second from left.
Bob and Angie in the late 1930s.
Bob sailing with his great friend, Antony Head.
Joe with Bob’s sisters, Joyce and Rosemary.
No. 5 Troop, 8 Commando. Bob seated centre, with Eddie Fitzclarence on his right.
Mechanized Landing Craft off Arran.
Bob after returning from Operation FLIPPER.
Charles Vaughan, the Commandant of the Commando Basic Training Centre. (Commando Veterans Association)
Bob, followed by Shimi Lovat, inspecting 4 Commando after the Dieppe Raid. (Commando Veterans Association)
(L to R) ‘Pops’ Manners, Bob and Brian Franks, with the ship’s officers, bound for Sicily on HMT Derbyshire.
Bob on Sicily with Mountbatten and Head, 13 July 1943.
‘Mad Jack’ Churchill, CO of 2 Commando.
The senior officers of COHQ in 1942: (L to R) Group Captain A. H. Willetts, Rear Admiral H. E. Horan, Major General J. C. Haydon, Mountbatten, Air Vice Marshal J. M. Robb, Major General G. E. Wildman-Lushington, Commodore R. Ellis.
Photo portrait by Karsh of Ottawa of Bob on his appointment as Chief of Combined Operations.
The officers of 10 (Inter Allied) Commando. Dudley Lister and Peter Laycock are standing third & fourth from left.
Senior officers of the Special Service Group: (L to R) Derek Mills-Roberts, Bob Sturges, John Durnford-Slater and Shimi Lovat. (Commando Veterans Association)
Bob inspecting a Royal Marine Commando before D-Day.
Bob accompanies King George VI to Normandy aboard HMS Arethusa. On the left is the King’s Private Secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles. On the far right is Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, the Naval C-in-C for OVERLORD.
Bob with the other members of the COHQ Mission to South East Asia Command.
Bob visiting the US Army Signals School at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
Bob and Angie, with (L to R) Martha, Ben, Emma and Joe, in the early 1950s.
As a Gold Staff Officer at the Coronation, Bob escorts Sir Winston and Lady Churchill to their carriage after the ceremony.
Bob and Angie on their way to attend the Candlemas Ceremony in Malta with his two ADCs, Mark Agnew (L) and Walter Bonello.
Visitors to Malta: The Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia …
… and Field Marshal Montgomery.
Wiseton Hall after rebuilding in 1960.
Bob at a Commando Association Reunion with (L to R) Charles Vaughan, John Hunt, Charles Haydon and Derek Mills-Roberts.
Bob during his visit to the SAS in Borneo.
Bob in the mid-1960s.
Commando General Page 33
