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Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds and Major-General George Kitching in Normandy 1944

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Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds and Major-General George Kitching in Normandy 1944 Canadian Military History Volume 11 Issue 4 Article 2 2002 A Re-Evaluation of Generalship: Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds and Major-General George Kitching in Normandy 1944 Angelo Caravaggio Canadian Forces College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Recommended Citation Caravaggio, Angelo "A Re-Evaluation of Generalship: Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds and Major-General George Kitching in Normandy 1944." Canadian Military History 11, 4 (2002) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Re-evaluatioCaravaggio: A Re-Evaluationn of Generalshipof Generalship Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds and Major-General George Kitching in Normandy 1944 Angelo Caravaggio ajor-General George Kitching was General Is this assessment valid? George Kitching MOfficer Commanding 4th Canadian tried to do his duty as a general. He tried to win Armoured Division from February until August the battles he was ordered to fight and he tried 1944. Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds, to prepare his men as best he could for the commander of 2nd Canadian Corps to which battles they would have to fight in Normandy. 4th Canadian Armoured Division belonged, He was prevented from accomplishing both relieved Kitching of command on 21 August, objectives by his superior Guy Simonds. Taking ostensibly for lack of leadership. The story of a more multi-disciplinary approach to the Major-General Kitching and 4th Canadian question reveals that the command relationship Armoured Division in Normandy has so far not between Simonds and Kitching was beset with been portrayed in an especially positive light. serious problems. The personal performance of Most scholarship, including the official history Kitching as General Officer Commanding 4th of the Canadian Army, accepts that Simonds was Canadian Armoured Division was a direct result justified in relieving Kitching from command. of being forced to operate in what Ross Pigeau Criticism from contemporary American and and Carol McCann describe as a compromised British commanders, repeated by subsequent command environment and the resulting historians, claimed that attacks by 2nd Canadian emotional and physical strain that this situation Corps, with the object of closing the Falaise Gap, placed on him personally.3 This command were not pressed forward with sufficient resolve environment, created by Simonds, was derived and thereby resulted in the escape of some from the corps commander's mistrust of his quarter million German soldiers.1 The "poor" subordinate divisional commanders after his performance of 4th Canadian Armoured Division failed attacks of July. Simonds decided he would in general, and the supposed lacklustre maintain greater control and in so doing, command performance of Kitching in particular, stripped his divisional commanders of their have been convenient explanations for this command authority. Kitching was not failure. Simonds viewed the case as one of responsible for the resulting compromised leadership potential that was never achieved by command environment, but he was forced to Kitching. The expectation was that the Canadians command his division within it until 21 August. should have been more successful in Operations Lack of sleep, combined with the stresses of "Totalize" and "Tractable" and that 4th Canadian sustained combat and the high casualties in the Armoured Division, as the spearhead for the August 1944 battles, sapped what was left of Canadian advance, should have closed the Kitching's capacity to command effectively at the Falaise Gap sooner. John English even goes so divisional level under Simonds. far as to state that the lacklustre performance of the Canadian army in Normandy laid squarely 2 James Jay Carafano, in his book After at the feet of the divisional commanders. D-Day: Operation Cobra and the Normandy ©CanadianMilitary History, Volume 11, Number 4, Autumn 2002, pp.5-19. 5 Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2002 1 Canadian Military History, Vol. 11 [2002], Iss. 4, Art. 2 Major-General George Kitching and Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds. Breakout, observes:" We do not write the history have appeared on the July 1944 entry. The of what happened but the history of the records crucial documents that would have shed light that remain."4 The statement underscores the on the activities, conversations, and orders by limitations of writing operational and tactical Kitching are the armoured command vehicle history from the existing primary source logs, but these are missing entirely. Without these material, which in many cases is woefully logs, it is almost impossible to track Kitching's deficient. Most war diaries of the units and personal activities. Donald Graves asked regiments of 4th Canadian Armoured Division Kitching about these logs in an interview, and are incomplete and in some cases, totally Kitching seemed surprised that they were not missing. The state of 4th Canadian Armoured available, thus implying that they did exist at Division's war diary itself is of particular one time. The existing primary sources concern. It appears that existing documents for documenting 4th Canadian Armoured Division's July and August were rebuilt after the fact. The activities during August 1944 are neither incompleteness of the July and August 1944 consistent nor reliable. diaries when compared to the diaries before and after those months and the fact that Major- Most secondary sources support Simonds General Harry Foster signed off the diary for July and his decision to relieve Kitching. In fact, other 1944 are somewhat worrisome. Foster took than one paragraph at the end of Chapter 14, in command of 4th Canadian Armoured Division his book Mud and Green Fields, Kitching fails on 21 August after Kitching was relieved of to come to his own defence.5 Surprisingly, the command. Kitching had signed 4th Canadian battles of "Totalize" and "Tractable" are not Armoured Division war diary entries from discussed in any great detail inside the book. February 1944, when he assumed command, to Kitching told me during a 1990 tour of the June 1944 and his signature should therefore Normandy battles that the manuscript for his https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol11/iss4/2 2 Caravaggio: A Re-Evaluation of Generalship memoirs was actually much longer than that accurately and react properly to the conditions actually published. Given Kitching's close on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the existing association with Simonds and his actions once literature leaves a confused picture as to who relieved of command, Kitching probably would actually made the decision to reroute the 4th have not criticised Simonds in any way had there Canadian Armoured Brigade's forces. The most been further discussions of these battles. probable scenario is that Kitching recommended Kitching receives timid support in Reginald Roy's the change and Simonds approved. What is clear book 1944: The Canadians in Normandy, which from the literature is that Kitching, as a provides a detailed account of the Canadian divisional commander, lacked the latitude to actions and Kitching's troubles.6 Nonetheless, change a Simonds plan once it had been issued, Roy leaves readers to decide whether or not even when it involved movement within his own Kitching was fairly treated. Donald Graves' South divisional boundaries. Albertas: A Canadian Regiment at War and John Marteinson's The Royal Canadian Another problem with the accepted history Armoured Corps: An Illustrated History have is the lack of a proper measurement tool to cast different lights on the events of August 1944, evaluate the command environment within and to some extent, on what happened to which Kitching and the other Canadian 7 Kitching. They have uncovered certain divisional commanders under Simonds fragments of information, which become operated. In order to offer a valid assessment of important in this reassessment. Notwith­ Kitching as a commander, an examination of his standing, historians have generally accepted command environment is essential. A Simonds' dismissal of Kitching without question measurement tool for assessing or quantifying or any detailed assessment of Kitching's side of a command environment has only recently the story. Any reconsideration of the command become available with development of the Pigeau/ relationship between Simonds and Kitching, McCann Command and Control model.8 The resulting in the latter's dismissal, requires model provides a workable definition of careful and critical reading of the war diaries command and control that can then be used to from 1st Canadian Army and 2nd Canadian guide policy and doctrine. The model represents Corps in light of new information presented by a rich tool for the assessment of commanders Graves and Marteinson. and their command environment. It includes two components that are critical to this evaluation, Among the principal problems with the the Command, Authority Responsibility (CAR) literature as a whole is the seemingly space and what is referred to as the Balanced indiscriminant interchanging of the names of Command Envelop (BCE). Simonds and Kitching in describing 4th Canadian Armoured Division's battles during The model examines the relationship August. In certain texts, Simonds is credited for between competency, authority and giving a specific
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