Self-exiled, ‘The Auk’ dies in Morocco, aged 97

Press, 30 March 1981, Page 5

Self-exiled, ‘The Auk’ dies in Morocco, aged 97

NZPA-Reuter; Marrakesh

Field-Marshal Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck, who has died, , aged 97, was the last of Britain’s great World War II commanders.

But although widely acknowledged now as the architect of Allied victories in the Western Desert, he was prevented from savouring them because the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, sacked him from his Middle East command in 1942. ‘'He had one fault.” the historian, A, J. P. Taylor, said of Auchinleck. ’“He failed to win when nobod}' could have won.”

Sir Claude Auchinleck, a Scot, was born on June 21, 1884, and trained at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. After service in India and the Middle East in the 1920 s and 19305. he took command of the Allied forces in the Middle East in 1941.

His adversary there was the “Desert Fox',” Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, against whom Auchinleck — known affectionately to his men as “The~Auk” — led a fierce three-week offensive, pushing the Afrika Korps to the frontier of Tripolitania, now part of Libya. But ’ Britain's army suffered heavy losses of armour and Auchinleck assumed personal command in the field, ordering a withdrawal to prepared positions at El Alamein. Egypt. There he turned, regrouped, and halted Rommel s advance. But this first success at El Alamein was not enough for Churchill, who visited the Middle East front in July, 1942, anxious for a victory to boost flagging morale in Britain.

He wanted a new offensive against the Afrika Korps and was displeased when Auchinleck said he would be

unable to launch one before mid-September. Auchinleck wrote later: “I wasn't going to be pushed about by him to undertake something half-baked at the risk of losing unnecessary lives.”

In August. Auchinleck was removed from his command.

In the event,' General Bernard Montgomery, as commander of the Eighth Army, did not launch a second offensive against the Germans at El Alamein until October.

Churchill wanted to appoint Auchinleck as commander of land forces in Iran and Iraq, which would have been separate from the Middle East command, but Auchinleck believed the separation would be strategically unsound and unworkable and with characteristic determination he turned the offer down.

After Montgomery’s victory, the Secretary of State

for India, Mr Leopold Amery, wrote to Auchinleck saying: “You always have the satisfaction of knowing that the victory of today was only made possible — and indeed the whole Middle East situation saved — by your personal intervention.”'

But if Auchinleck, who was made a field-marshal in 1946, ' narrowly missed becoming a ; '. national hero in the desert war, he had another opportunity ahead of him io makeuse of his many talents. In June, 1943. he returned to India, where he had begun . his active soldiering, as com-i j mander-in-chief.

He built up a great fighting machine which provided the 14th Army with a steady - stream of men and for the reconquest of Burma' • under Field Marshal Sir Wil-4 liam Slim. / '■

As Britain’s last comman-der-in-chief in India, he also introduced muchadmired reforms.