by Richard Mead
Watson, Graeme & Rinaldi, Richard, The British Army in Germany: An Organizational History 1947 – 2004, Tiger Lily Publications 2005
Williams, David, The Black Cats at War: The Story of the 56th (London) Division T.A. 1939 – 1945, London 1995
Williamson, David, A Most Diplomatic General: The Life of General Lord Robertson of Oakridge, London 1996
Notes
Chapter 1: The McCreerys and the McAdams
1 James McCreery stayed in the East. In 1862 he became a partner in a New York firm specializing in silk and other textiles. After his partner’s retirement, the firm was renamed James McCreery & Co, with its flagship store on Broadway and 11th Street. At least two of his sons, James and Andrew, carried on in the business and were also involved with the James McCreery Realty Company, which held the family’s real estate interests.
2 This title first appeared in a cartoon in 1827 and is sometimes ascribed to his father, who was still alive. However, both the physical resemblance to the son and the inclusion in the cartoon of roads leading out of London with which he was more closely associated, suggest otherwise.
Chapter 2: Childhood and Schooldays
1 Andrew McCreery had never been a naturalized citizen of the United States. Because Andrew was a British subject, Walter later claimed during litigation the right to be considered one himself for the purposes of English law.
2 Trials is the Eton name for internal school exams which continued to be used at St Michael’s.
3 By Jack McCreery to a friend at Eton.
4 The academic terms at Eton are known as Halves, the Michaelmas Half from September to December, the Lent Half from January to March and the Summer Half from April to July.
5 J. J. L. McAdam had died from a heart attack the year before Dick went to Eton, having been in poor health for some time.
6 Strawson Papers.
7 The Eton Society, whose members are the nearest thing to school prefects and who are distinguished by their dress.
Chapter 3: The Western Front
1 Moy Day was thereafter kept as the Regimental Day. In the merged 9th/12th Lancers, it is kept as Mons Moy Day, remembering also a similar action by the 9th Lancers at Moncel on 7 September 1914.
2 The XII Royal Lancers’ Journal October 1938.
3 Strawson Papers.
4 One of the other officers, Bill Truman, who later commanded the regiment, subsequently described how Dick had wanted to go and get killed in the Guards Brigade and commented that it was fortunate for all that he did not do so.
Chapter 4: Disaster and Triumph
1 A heavy double-breasted greatcoat first issued to officers during the Great War.
2 Letter to Frances McAdam 23.2.17.
3 Princess Henry of Battenberg was Queen Victoria’s youngest child, Beatrice.
4 Sir Hugh Mallinson Rigby in due course became Honorary Surgeon to King George V.
5 Now the site of the famous hotel.
6 Frances McAdam was to receive the OBE for her services during the War, Minnie the MBE and Da the Royal Red Cross Medal.
7 One of his fellow officers later said that there was a hole in the muscle the size of a tennis ball.
8 She was to die in California in April of the following year.
9 Whenever he heard of him in later years, General Jackson would always remember the slim figure and friendly smile of a subaltern who looked far too young to execute the orders he was giving. He died in 1972 at the age of 93 and Dick visited him at his home in Dorset in 1964.
Chapter 5: Peace and Tragedy
1 Letter to Frances Mc Adam 14.11.14.
2 ‘Foxy’ was eventually put down in 1934 at the age of 23.
3 Some years later he took on the adjutancy of the North Somerset Yeomanry, a position held by a regular cavalry officer, before resigning his commission in 1929.
4 It was demolished in 1961.
5 This was because the dividends declared by the McCreery Estate Company were insufficient after the priority payment of $1,000 per month for the children.
6 Draft Memoirs.
Chapter 6: The Adjutant
1 The use of machine guns and mortars was taught at the Machine Gun School at Netheravon. The two schools merged in 1926, just after Dick had also attended the latter.
2 Draft Memoirs.
3 The XII Royal Lancers’ Journal October 1946.
4 Strawson Papers.
5 Draft Memoirs.
6 Eldred was to be part of Dick’s life for over 20 years, first in the Army and then as a stableman-cum-driver-cum-handyman.
Chapter 7: Lettice
1 Templer, with 6,147 marks, was just above the level for automatic entry without a nomination: it was his third attempt.
2 Henry Jackson, who in 1918 had given Dick the orders which earned him the MC, was Director of Military Training in India and, as soon as he heard that Dick had qualified, threw his weight behind his nomination, which also attracted the support of Lord Birdwood.
3 This was a small but well-known marque, with its factory in Wolverhampton. It ceased production in 1932.
4 The name St Maur appears to be interchangeable with Seymour in the family.
Chapter 8: Staff Officer
1 Passed Staff College.
2 Strawson Papers.
3 Notes relating to Staff College.
4 Ibid.
5 He had received conflicting advice from Houston and Charrington, the former saying that he would be a fool to refuse a good staff job, the latter trying to persuade Dick to rejoin the regiment for two years before his first staff posting.
6 This later became the Salisbury Plain Race Track, although it no longer exists.
Chapter 9: The Colonel
1 Charrington left the Army shortly afterwards to pursue a successful business career. He returned in 1939, commanding a brigade in Greece and then an infantry division in Home Forces before retiring again (see also Chapter 21, Note 11).
2 Strawson Papers. Dick rated Savill highly and was upset when he transferred to The King’s Dragoon Guards in order to achieve accelerated promotion. He was to return to the 12th Lancers as Commanding Officer in Italy.
3 Hunn served with the regiment through most of World War II, rising to Squadron Sergeant Major: he was persuaded to apply for a commission and passed out from the OCTU at Sandhurst, originally into the 4th Hussars and then back to the regiment in Germany.
4 Dick provided an abridged version of the evening in a letter to Lettice, describing the dancing as ‘very vulgar’!
5 Letter to Lettice 5.2.36.
Chapter 10: Alex
1 Russell remained with 7 Armoured Brigade until July 1941, when he was appointed BGS to Vivyan Pope, the newly appointed GOC of XXX Corps. He and Pope were both killed in a plane crash near Cairo that October.
2 General Staff Officer Grade 1 was a full colonel’s appointment between the wars. Within the first year of the Second World War, the rapid expansion of the army meant that the rank of GSO1s was downgraded to lieutenant colonel.
3 Draft Memoirs.
4 Ibid.
5 Lettice’s other sister, Lucia, had married a Gosling relative, Teddy, at the beginning of 1938.
6 Letter to Lettice 3.10.39.
7 Letter to Lettice 6.12.39.
8 Selby went backwards and forwards twice to the USA before leaving for good: when in London he was active as an Air Raid Warden.
9 Letter from Alexander 15.1.40.
10 Alexander Memoirs p.17.
Chapter 11: The Somme and the Seine
1 Morgan Peace and War p.134.
2 Strawson Papers.
3 Claude Nicholson was one of those made a prisoner of war. Sadly he was to die in captivity.
4 McCreery Papers ‘2nd Armoured Brigade in France May – June1940’.
5 Strawson Papers.
6 The Highland Division was forced to surrender at St Valéry-en-Caux on 12 June.
7 McCreery Papers ‘2nd Armoured Brigade in France M
ay – June1940’.
8 52 (Lowland) Division was already in France and 1 Canadian Division was in the process of disembarking. Together with 1 Armoured Division, Lines of Communication troops, sundry BEF units which had escaped being cut off and RAF personnel, there were approaching 150,000 men in the country. The large majority were brought back safely.
Chapter 12: Q and Bumper
1 Strawson Papers.
2 Ibid.
3 Letter from Lumsden 29.6.40.
4 Churchill The Second World War, Volume II p.218.
5 Letter to brigade commanders 11.1.41.
6 Danchev & Todman Alanbrooke Diaries p.142.
7 Letter from Martel 23.5.41.
8 Churchill The Second World War, Volume III p.676.
9 Report on ‘Bumper’ by Canadian Military HQ 27.10.41.
10 Letter from Alexander 3.10.41.
11 Letter from Martel 3.10.41.
Chapter 13: Adviser
1 Letter to Martel August 1941.
2 1 Armoured Group in Eastern Command was led by Crocker and 3 Armoured Group in Northern Command by Michael O’Moore Creagh, formerly the GOC of 7 Armoured Division in the Western Desert.
3 Martel An Outspoken Soldier p.187.
4 Connnell Auchinleck p.475.
5 Ibid. p.476.
6 Danchev & Todman Alanbrooke Diaries p.235.
7 Lettice gave him ‘a wonderful letter’ which he opened on the train to Poole. He kept it in his wallet for the rest of his life.
8 Liardet was followed in due course by George Webb, both of whom gave Dick excellent service.
9 Danchev & Todman Alanbrooke Diaries p.224.
Chapter 14: Crisis in the Desert
1 This infantry brigade was part of 50 Division.
2 Twelfth Royal Lancers’ Journal April 1959.
3 Strawson Papers.
4 Twelfth Royal Lancers’ Journal April 1959.
5 The Jock columns were named after Jock Campbell, a vigorous horse gunner who won the VC at Sidi Rezegh commanding 7 Armoured Division’s Support Group and then went on to command the division before being killed in a road accident.
6 Twelfth Royal Lancers’ Journal April 1959.
7 Bryant The Turn of the Tide p.450.
8 Auchinleck learnt of his dismissal on the afternoon of 8 August, but the news had evidently not reached Collier.
9 Twelfth Royal Lancers Journal April 1959.
Chapter 15: Chief of Staff
1 Letter to Lettice 20.8.42.
2 Twelfth Royal Lancers’ Journal April 1959.
3 Strawson Papers.
4 Strawson Papers.
5 Richardson Flashback p.160.
6 Letter from Davy to Lettice 24.10.67.
7 Hunt A Don at War p.145.
8 Letter from Stewart to Lettice undated.
9 Churchill was sent a daily telegram giving him the numbers which passed out of the workshops and up to the front line.
10 Gascoigne was commander of 201 Guards Brigade, which was reforming in Syria after being forced to surrender at Tobruk in June. He had been invited by Leese to join his HQ to watch the battle.
11 Alexander Memoirs pp.27 – 8.
12 De Guingand Operation Victory p.206.
13 Richardson Send for Freddie p.100.
14 Letter from Davy to Lettice 24.10.67.
15 Lumsden was later sent as Churchill’s representative to General MacArthur in the Pacific. He was killed aboard a US battleship by a kamikaze strike in January 1945, whilst watching amphibious landings in the Philippines.
Chapter 16: Victory in Tunis
1 Danchev & Todman Alanbrooke Diaries p.365.
2 Hunt A Don at War p.173.
3 Stewart received shrapnel in his spine, which left him with limited movement in his legs. He was in due course invalided out, but Dick kept in close contact with him and supported his candidacy to write the regimental history of the 12th Lancers.
4 Twelfth Royal Lancers’ Journal April 1959.
5 Dick wrote to Lettice on 9 May that ‘Monty had lunch here yesterday, not quite so full of himself as usual, because he had not played the leading role this time.’
6 Appreciation of Alexander in McCreery private papers.
7 Supplement to the London Gazette 5.2.48 p.840.
8 Letter to Lettice 9.5.43.
9 Hamilton Master of the Battlefield p.377.
10 Paget was still C-in-C Home Forces. His role changed to C-in-C 21st Army Group in July 1943, when those formations identified for the campaign in north-west Europe came under his command.
11 Letter to Lettice 23.6.43.
Chapter 17: Avalanche
1 Richardson Flashback p.160.
2 Ibid.
3 He was the youngest son of the 1st Baron Bicester. The family home was near Bicester and they were probably friends of Lettice’s sister, Helen Gosling. Hugh Smith’s oldest brother, Randall, was the same age as Dick and another former officer in the 17th Lancers.
4 Hilary was a merchant ship, one of a number requisitioned by the Royal Navy and converted specially into HQ ships for major amphibious operations. She was also used for the landings in Sicily and Normandy.
5 This was the British element of the ‘tactical’ air force, comprising a mix of fighters, fighter-bombers and light bombers, specifically trained to operate in conjunction with ground forces: it retained until the end of the War the name which it had used in North Africa.
6 A small number were acquitted, but 181 were found guilty, of whom 3 were sentenced to death as ringleaders and the rest to hard labour. The death sentences were commuted and all sentences then suspended provided that the men served wherever they were sent until the end of the War.
7 The Daimler Dingo was by this time the standard light scout car for the British Army.
8 Strawson Papers.
Chapter 18: River and Mountain
1 Having served in France in 1940, Templer had spent the next three years in Home Forces, rising to command of a corps as a lieutenant general. Realizing that to go further he would need battlefield experience, he lobbied successfully for command of a division in an active theatre, regardless of the resulting demotion in rank.
2 Letter to Lettice 6.11.43.
3 Letter to Lettice 25.10.43. Smith later proved to be an outstanding businessman, becoming a director of Anglo American shortly after the War and then chairman of Charter Consolidated.
4 Letter to Lettice 25.10.43
5 The retreating Guards were ordered to leave their dead behind, in contravention of their own traditions. The Grenadiers never really forgave Templer and the relationship between them was somewhat frosty thereafter.
6 Strawson Papers.
7 Letter to Lettice 27.12.43.
8 Danchev & Todman Alanbrooke Diaries p.501.
Chapter 19: The Winter Line
1 The Germans called the longest section, including that from Cassino to the sea, the Gustav Line, which is how it is better known to historians.
2 Richardson Flashback p.160.
3 Von Senger Neither Fear nor Hope p.190.
4 The disaster experienced by this Texas National Guard Division was to haunt Clark for the rest of his life. After the end of the War the division’s veterans lobbied for Congressional hearings and other investigations into his conduct of the battle, none with any success, although it did delay his promotion on one occasion.
5 Billy Scott, as he was less formally called, was a younger son of the Duke of Buccleugh and the brother of Lettice’s close friend, the Duchess of Gloucester.
Chapter 20: The Tiber Valley
1 So called because of his huge moustache, which apparently made him look like a Turkish military governor.
2 46 Division had returned to Italy at the beginning of July and was at the time in Eighth Army reserve at Bevagna, south-east of Perugia.
3 Dick had been a KCB for nearly a year. Rather than kneeling on the traditional low stool, he was permitted to use a chair to accommodate hi
s game leg.
