MODERN SOLDIER

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 23082, 22 December 1944, Page 7

MODERN SOLDIER

Second Army Leader General Dempsey’s Career Few military commanders have had a more meteoric rise to high command than General Sir Miles C. Dempsey, who has been leading the Second British Army throughout its operations in France and the Low Countries. His Army Command, which covers only about six months of actual fighting, has been packed with incident and has included almost every form of western warfare. First, an amphibious landing on the grandest scale—the most difficult and hazardous operation known in war—brilliantly planned and most skilfully carried out; then the steady build-up of the Normandy beach-head, and the determined resistance to Rommel’s fiercest counter-attacks in the Caen area. Part in Invasion It was here that the fate of the whole invasion was decided, for, had Dempsey failed to hold his ground, Rommel might well have achieved his object in hurling the Allied landings back into the sea. General Eisenhower himself has said that a yard of ground at Caen was worth 10 miles anywhere else in Normandy. It was at this critical juncture that the close relationship and mutual confidence which exist between Dempsey and his famous superior were such a source of strength. Montgomery knew that Dempsey would hold and that on the firm and unyielding hinge of Caen he could swing round the American armour for the coup de grace. Later, as soon as opportunity offered, Dempsey showed that he knew the value of speed in the attack as well as anyone, and his advance of over 200 miles in five days after - crossing the Seine was a brilliant exposition of the use of modern mechanised forces. Dempsey is very typical of the modem young British general produced by the present war. Brian Horrocks, one of his most successful corps commanders, is just such another. Dempsey is tall, lean and extremely wiry and tough. In manner he is quiet, decided and immensely confident. He is not yet 48 and was a lieutenant-colonel commanding his battalion of the Royal Berkshire Regiment when the present war started. Three Passions He is actually the second of my staff college pupils to become an army commander, though the first, that grand fighting soldier "Strafer” Gott, was killed in Africa before he could take up command of the Eighth Army. In the days when I first knew and worked with Dempsey his three chief passions were hunting, cricket, and soldiering, and I think that, in those days, for him they came in that order. He was a first-rate man across country on a horse, a batsman at cricket who would have been in the first class if he had the opportunity, and a soldier who quite obviously possessed the greatest possibilities. Quite a number of soldiers have had great possibilities, but failed to make the most of their opportunities. Not so Dempsey; when war came, all his great energies of mind and body were concentrated on his soldiering. Fortune favoured him and his own sterling character and outstanding ability did the rest. “A Montgomery Man” In May, 1940, three days before the Germans swept into Belgium, Dempsey came to pay me a visit at my headquarters on the Belgian frontier. He had just been given command of an infantry brigade and was already a marked man. By the end of 1942 he was commanding a corps in General Montgomery’s Eighth Army. In this capacity he went through all the fighting in North Africa and Italy. He became a “Montgomery man” — one of that brilliant little band of young British generals whom the present field-marshal has proved in battle —and found good. It was no surprise to me, therefore, when Montgomery selected Dempsey to command the British Army in what was obviously going to be one of the most momentous military operations in British history. He emerged from that ordeal magnificently, with his reputation enhanced, the confidence of his troops in him increased, and with the welldeserved gratitude of his fellowcountrymen;