Point of Failure: British Army Brigadiers in the British Expeditionary Force and North Western Expeditionary Force, 1940 a Study of Advancement and Promotion

POINT OF FAILURE: BRITISH ARMY BRIGADIERS IN THE BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE AND NORTH WESTERN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, 1940 A STUDY OF ADVANCEMENT AND PROMOTION - PHILIP MC CARTY MA A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 2021 This work or any part thereof has not been previously presented in any form to the University or to any other body whether for the purposes of assessment, publication or for any other purpose (unless otherwise indicated). Save for any express acknowledgements, references and/or biographies cited in the work, I confirm that the intellectual content of the work is the result of my own efforts and of no other person. The right of Philip Mc Carty to be identified as author of this work is asserted in accordance with ss.77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. At this date copyright is owned by the author. POINT OF FAILURE PJ MC CARTY – UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON ABSTRACT By the summer of 1940 the British Army had suffered two simultaneous strategic defeats in Norway and France. Both had led to hurried and ignominious evacuations. A popular misconception contends that this led to a wholesale clearing out of the British Army’s command structure in order to start again, and that many officers suffered the loss of their careers in the necessity to rebuild an army both to withstand invasion and enable victory over Nazi Germany. This thesis contends that this belief is misplaced, and that rather than automatically ending the careers of all involved, some officers would progress and even thrive after 1940 in varying degrees. Its basis is a group of officers, brigadiers, on the cusp of either progression to general’s rank, stagnation or demotion. The careers of these officers are examined to establish whether or not factors including education, regiment, staff qualifications and so on influenced their professional survival. The work also considers whether the presence or absence of influence was responsible for an officer’s progression through the war after 1940. This thesis also examines those brigadiers serving in fighting commands in the initial stages of the Battle of Normandy in 1944. This is to compare a group on the cusp of winning a war with one close to its loss. The conclusion will be that the degree of change 1 POINT OF FAILURE PJ MC CARTY – UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON between the types of officer serving was not as radical as might have previously been supposed. 2 POINT OF FAILURE PJ MC CARTY – UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON Contents Acknowledgements...........................................................................................................4 List of Charts and Tables ...................................................................................................6 List of Acronyms and Abbreviations .................................................................................9 Introduction: .................................................................................................................. 17 Chapter 2........................................................................................................................ 74 Chapter 3...................................................................................................................... 158 Chapter 4...................................................................................................................... 209 Chapter 5...................................................................................................................... 278 Conclusions .................................................................................................................. 347 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 373 3 POINT OF FAILURE PJ MC CARTY – UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS At the start of this process, I was passed a piece of wisdom by my supervisor that he had been let into by his, a few years before – that a doctorate is “an itch you simply have to scratch”. Although the writing has taken eight years, the itch has been present since the early 1990s, when life, work and two Gulf Wars got in the way. Writing a thesis is a lonely furrow to plough, but like those recruiting adverts for the Royal Air Force in the 1970s, showing the pilot in front of his aircraft with a large triangle of those needed to keep him in the air behind him, it is not a completely solitary one. This thesis would not have been possible without the support and assistance of a large number of people. My supervisory team of Professor John Buckley and Professor Stephen Badsey have been hugely helpful, patient, wise and present. Their consistent faith in me when I thought I would give in, got me there. Dr Phylomena Badsey also deserves more thanks in this regard than simple words. These have been difficult times for museums and archives, with funding difficulties ever present. The usual sources for the military historian, the Imperial War Museum, the National Army Museum, The National Archives and the Liddle Hart Centre at King’s College London have been of great help. Regimental museums across the country have been under greater pressure after the withdrawal of Ministry of Defence funding in 2017, forcing many to charge for help. Several 4 POINT OF FAILURE PJ MC CARTY – UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON curators were understanding and helpful in this regard, but their existence is still precarious, and museums deserve support. I am particularly grateful to Mr Mike Taylor who not only allowed me access to his collection of Second World War British Army unit histories, but spent considerable time copying and collating sections I needed. I also record my thanks to the late Professor Keith Jeffrey, who provided not only good-humoured encouragement, but gave me one piece of advice from his own work on the official history of the Secret Intelligence Service which unlocked a fruitful avenue of enquiry. Dr John Spencer’s advice on drafting, general encouragement and friendship was and remains invaluable. The deepest gratitude must go to my partner Helen, for her selfless support for this effort, from supporting my decision to leave full time employment to follow it, altering her own plans as a result, to keeping my body and soul together. This work is dedicated to three people who did not live to see it finished. First, my dear parents, John and Betty, and my maternal uncle, Ronald Cotton. My parents taught me to read before I went to school and they and Ron, an autodidact, never made me feel that to have my head in a book was anything to be disdained. 5 POINT OF FAILURE PJ MC CARTY – UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON List of Charts and Tables Chart 1: 1940 Brigadiers by Year of First Commissioning Table 2.1: Officers from Schools in the Clarendon Group (All Officers) Table 2.1A: Officers from Schools in the Clarendon group (Officers Progressing) Table 2.2: Officers from Schools of the Headmasters’ Conference (All Officers) Table 2.3: 1940 Brigadiers with Officer Father or Grandfather Table 2.4: Officers from Aristocratic and Titled Families Table 2.5: Officers with relatives who were Clergy Table 3.1: Staff College, Camberley: 1925 graduates advancing to General rank Table 3.2: 1940 Brigadiers: Instructors at the Senior Officers’ School Table 3.3: Imperial Defence College Graduates Table 3.4: Overseas Service Reconciliation Table 3.4A: Overseas Postings 1919-1939: India Table 3.4B: Degrees of Contemporaneousness by Date: India Table 3.4C: Groups of Contemporaries, India 1919-1938 Table 3.4D: Overseas Postings 1919-1939: Africa Table 3.4E: Overseas Postings 1919-1939: Palestine Table 3.4F: Overseas Postings 1919-1939: Egypt 6 POINT OF FAILURE PJ MC CARTY – UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON Table 3.4G: Overseas postings 1919-1939: Gibraltar Table 3.4H: Overseas Postings 1919-1939: China Table 3.4I: Overseas Postings 1919-1939: Malaya Table 3.4J: Overseas Postings 1919-1939: Iraq Table 3.4K: Overseas Postings 1919-1939: Turkey/Constantinople Table 3.4L: Overseas Postings 1919-1939: Finland Table 3.4M: Overseas Postings 1919-1939: Single Postings Table 3.4N: Officers with Multiple Overseas Tours Table 3.4O: Officers Progressing with Overseas Service 1919-1939: School, Regiment & Staff College Table 4.1: Officers Progressing To Major General or above: Schools Attended Table 4.2: Schools producing more than one Brigadier in 1940: Progression “Success Rate” Table 4.3: Degrees of Contemporaneousness, Schools producing more than one progressing officer Table 4.4: General Officers by Original Commissioning Table 4.5: War Service of Officers Progressing Table 4.5A: Officers advancing who served in multiple theatres, First World War (excluding Western Front) & 1919-1939 Table 4.6: Officers progressing: Staff College contemporaries Table 4.7: Honours and awards to the group for operations in France or Norway 1940 7 POINT OF FAILURE PJ MC CARTY – UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON Table 4.8: Post 1940 Careers of Officers progressing beyond Brigadier Table 4.9: Officers taught by Brooke and Montgomery at Camberley, Quetta and the Imperial Defence College Table 4.10: “The Coat Tails Effect” Table 5.1: Normandy: Divisions and Brigades Arrived on D-Day Table 5.2: Normandy: Divisions and Brigades: Follow-on forces to the end of June Chart 5.3: Normandy Fighting Brigadiers: Age Distribution Table 5.4: 1940/1944: Comparison of Schools: Normandy Brigadiers (Sole

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