Bernard Montgomery
Bernard Montgomery was born in 1887. He was educated at St. Paul’s School and Sandhurst and in 1908, at the age of 21, he gained a commission in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. During World War One, Montgomery served on the Western Front. A highly efficient young officer, he was given a succession of command posts both in Britain and in India and by 1938, he had been promoted to the rank of major-general.
At the outbreak of World War Two, Montgomery was part of the British Expeditionary Force. Montgomery was given the command of the Third Division (BEF) which had to be evacuated at Dunkirk.
After Churchill’s sacking of Auchinleck after the failure of the first battle at El Alamein, Montgomery was given command of the Eighth Army in North Africa. He was likened to being like a ferret and being as popular as one! However, unlike many senior officers of the day, he went out of his way to meet the soldiers under his command. He lived a lifestyle that was not typical of a general. Though his command base was a large and luxurious North African house, Montgomery lived in a caravan in the garden. Strictly teetotal and anti-smoking, he made sure that his men had a reasonable access to cigarettes. There is no doubt that he was popular with the men in the Eighth Army.
Victory at El Alamein
His victory at El Alamein was to turn the tide of the war. The defeat of the Germans at El Alamein was the first they had experienced and within North Africa, the Germans could only retreat and they quit North Africa in May 1943. It is difficult to overstate the importance of Montgomery’s victory at El Alamein.
At D-Day, Montgomery commanded the British and Canadian units that were given the task of taking on the main bulk of the German forces at Normandy. This enabled the American Twelfth Army Group to move deeply into France and head the breakout from Normandy. Montgomery wanted a full-scale rush on Berlin via the Ruhr, but this was overruled by the Allies Supreme Commander, Dwight Eisenhower. Montgomery and Eisenhower had a solid professional relationship but ‘Monty’ did not always agree with the overall strategy of Eisenhower who he believed too frequently favoured the plans of the Americans – including the maverick General George Patton.
Promoted To Field Marshal
On September 1st 194, Montgomery was promoted to Field Marshal, the highest rank he could reach in the British Army. By now Montgomery commanded the 21st Army Group that succeeded in taking the vital port of Antwerp in Belgium but was involved in the failure at Arnhem. The 21st Group was also deeply involved in the Battle of the Bulge – Germany’s ill-fated attempt to push back the Allies. Montgomery’s group crossed the River Rhine on March 24th 1945. He accepted the formal surrender of the German military at Luneburg Heath on May 4th 1945.
After the end of the war, Montgomery consolidated the status he had. From 1946 to 1948, Montgomery served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff and from 1951 to 1958, he was Deputy Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe.
Montgomery, created a viscount in 1946 in recognition of the part he played in the war, was one of the British Army’s most successful generals. He died in 1976.
Walter Model
Otto Moritz Walter Model was born January 24, 1891 in Genthin, Saxony-Anhalt, he was noted for his defensive skills and was nicknamed "Hitler's fireman". Model was known under the German General Staff as a loyal follower of Hitler.
Model served as an infantry officer in World War I and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class in 1915; in 1919, he was one of 4,000 officers who remained in the Reichswehr. He was promoted many times during the period of Hitler's rise to power and again during the Second World War. During the Polish and French campaigns in 1939 and 1940 he served as a corps and army chief of staff. In the Russian campaigns from 1941 until 1944 he served in as a division, corps, and finally army commander.
Moscow In Sight
As commander of the XXXXI Panzer Corps, Model spearheaded Operation Typhoon, the leg of Operation Barbarossa intended to take Moscow. During the assault, Model's forces captured important bridgeheads leading to Moscow and reached within 20 km of the city before the Red Army forced his troops back.
In January 1942 Model was appointed commander of the 9th Army and, shortly thereafter, awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross. During the Battles of Rzhev, Model's army trapped and destroyed large numbers of Russian troops and successfully defended the area until 1943 when Hitler ordered a withdrawal. For his defensive skills he was awarded the Swords to the Oak Leaves of the Knight's Cross following the withdrawal from Rhzev.
In 1943 Model was appointed commander of Army Group South and led the northern assault on Kursk during Operation Citadel. Model was opposed to the operation as well as to Hitler's orders to stand fast under all circumstances. Hitler later allowed Model to withdraw, and he managed to break out of the Oryol, which the Russians were about to retake.
Promoted To Field Marshal
In January 1944 Model was assigned commander-in-chief of Army Group North on the Eastern Front. In March he was promoted to field marshal, making him the youngest Generalfeldmarschall in German military history. He commanded Army Group Narva, created out of Army Group North to prevent a Soviet breakthrough to the Baltic Sea in what became the Battle of Narva.
In mid-August Model was transferred to the west as Commander in Chief West and concurrently as Commander in Chief of Army Group B. Upon Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt´s return as Commander in Chief West in early September, Model retained command of Army Group B, a post he kept until the the group's final dissolution in April 1945. As Commander of Army Group B, Model helped stem the Allied advance during Operation Market Garden.
Believing that a field marshal should not surrender, Model committed suicide by shooting himself in the head in a wooded area near Lintorf, Ratingen, on April 21 1945, before he could be captured. He is buried in the Soldatenfriedhof Vossenack, a German military cemetery located near the town of Vossenack, Germany.
Roy Urquhart
Major General Robert Elliott Urquhart, was born onNovember 28, 1901. - December 13, 1988) Born in 1901, Urquhart had been educated at St Paul's and Sandhurst before being commissioned into the Highland Light Infantry in 1920, with whom he remained, stationed in India, until 1940. From 1941 to 1943, as a Lieutenant-Colonel, he had commanded the 2nd Battalion the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry before acting as Chief of Staff to the 51st Highland Division, serving in North Africa. Promoted to Brigadier, he led this Division's 231 Brigade Group with great success in Sicily and then Italy, where he was slightly wounded and awarded the DSO and Bar. Urquhart was appointed Brigadier General Staff to XII Corps of the 2nd British Army, and had only served in this capacity for a few months before being offered command of the 1st Airborne Division. This came as a great surprise to him as he had thought of the airborne movement as "a family business" that produced its own commanders, and he had no experience of this kind of warfare, nor had he given the slightest thought to it. Besides, Urquhart was prone to airsickness. He was highly aware of these facts but relished the opportunity of his first divisional command, and reasoned that once the airborne troops were on the ground, the rules of war that he was accustomed to were largely the same.
Taking command of the Division on the 7th January 1944, Urquhart had an uphill struggle to win the respect of his men, which he found quite unnerving as there was always a sense that his every movement was being monitored. Following the war he served in several staff positions, including service during the Malayan Emergency, until his retirement from the army in 1955.After leaving the army Urquhart became an executive in the steel industry, retiring in 1970.
Urquhart was portraited by Sean Connery in the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far.
Urquhart was portraited by Sean Connery in the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far.
Wilhelm 'Willi' Bittrich
Wilhelm 'Willi' Bittrich was born on February 26, 1894 in the town of Wernigerode in the Harz mountains of Germany, Bittrich served as an army officer during World War I. He joined the SS-Verfügungstruppe in 1934, where he served until 1939, whereupon he joined the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. He was in command of the Deutschland Regiment during the fighting in Poland (1939) and France (1940).
He later commanded the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich and the II. SS-Panzerkorps (Hohenstaufen & Frundsberg Divisions). He is perhaps now best remembered for his contribution to the defeat of the failed allied airborne offensive Operation Market Garden which took place in the Netherlands in September of 1944. During his career he was a recipient of many military decorations, including:
• Knight's Cross
• Iron Cross 1st Class
• Iron Cross 2nd Class
• Cross of Honor 1914–1918
• 1914 Wound Badge (Black)
• 1939 Iron Cross 2nd Class Bar
• SS Ring of Honour
• SS Sword of Honour
• Knight's Cross
• Iron Cross 1st Class
• Iron Cross 2nd Class
• Cross of Honor 1914–1918
• 1914 Wound Badge (Black)
• 1939 Iron Cross 2nd Class Bar
• SS Ring of Honour
• SS Sword of Honour
Criticism Of The Nazi Party
Unlike many other SS officers of similar rank, Bittrich conducted himself with honor throughout his career and was not charged with any crimes following his capture in 1945. He was released, and lived in West Germany for 34 years after the war. Following operation Market-Garden in 1944, Albert Speer visited the front and had an opportunity to observe General Bittrich. Speer later wrote, "Other visits (to the front) showed me that efforts were being made on the Western Front to arrive at understandings with the enemy on special problems. At Arnhem, I found General Bittrich of the Waffen-SS in a state of fury. The day before, his Second Tank Corps had virtually wiped out a British airborne division. During the fighting the general had made an arrangement permitting the enemy to run a field hospital situated behind the German lines. But party functionaries had taken it upon themselves to kill British and American pilots, and Bittrich was cast in the role of a liar. His violent denunciation of the party was all the more striking since it came from an SS general." Wilhelm 'Willi' Bittrich died on April 19, 1979 Wolfratshausen, Bavaria
James Gavin
James Maurice "Jumpin' Jim" Gavin was born in Brooklyn, New York on 22 March 1907. His precise ancestry is unknown; his mother was possibly the Irish immigrant Katherine Ryan, and his father James Nally (also of Irish heritage), although official documentation lists Thomas Ryan as father; potentially in order to make the birth legitimate. When he was about two years old, his parents placed him in the Convent of Mercy orphanage in Brooklyn. From this point he was in state care, until he was adopted in 1909.
His adoptive parents were Martin and Mary Gavin, a coal mining family living in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania.
Gavin was a graduate of the United States Military Academy, Class of 1929, and the first commander of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. When he took command of the 82nd Airborne Division during World War II, he was the youngest Major General commanding a division since the American Civil War. During combat, he was known for his habit of carrying an M1 Garand rifle, as opposed to the pistols traditionally carried by staff officers and generals. {Likewise Matthew Ridgway carried a Springfield 1903 rifle}. After the war, he was a key player in stimulating the discussions which lead to the Pentomic Army Division which had lightweight, air-deployable M113 tracked aluminium alloy armoured personnel carriers organic to Airborne and "straight leg" divisions for battlefield mobility even if nuclear weapons had devastated roads and trails. As Army Chief of Research and Development and author, he called for a "cavalry" in lightweight armoured vehicles and helicopters which lead to the Howze Board which had a great influence on the Army´s use of helicopters—first seen during the Vietnam War. Upon retiring in 1958 as a Lieutenant General, Gavin served twice as the United States ambassador to France (1961–63).
Amongst his decorations, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. He was also awarded the British Distinguished Service Order.
General Gavin was portrayed by Robert Ryan in The Longest Day, and by Ryan O'Neal in A Bridge Too Far. General Gavin served as an advisor to both films.
His men, who respected him a great deal, also called him Slim Jim due to his athletic figure. Gavin fought against segregation in the US Army, which gained him some notoriety. With his first wife Irma Baulsir, he had a daughter; Barbara Gavin Fauntleroy. He had four further daughters with his second wife.
General Gavin died on February 23, 1990, in Baltimore, Maryland
General Gavin died on February 23, 1990, in Baltimore, Maryland
Miles Dempsey
Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Christopher Dempsey was born on 15th December 1896. After graduating from Sandhurst Military Academy in 1915 Dempsey joined the Royal Berkshire Regiment. He served on the Western Front in France during the First World War where he was awarded the Military Cross for bravery.
Remaining in the army, at the start of World War II he had reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was commander of the 13th Infantry Brigade where during Dunkirk he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. In December 1942 he was promoted to Lieutenant General where he helped plan the invasion of Sicily and lead the assault on Sicily in 1943. Dempsey later lead the invasion of Italy across the Strait of Messina, his troops advanced more than 300 miles to the north before linking up with US troops at Salerno.
In January 1944 he was given command of the British Second Army which was the main British force (although it also included many Canadian and Polish soldiers) involved in the D-Day landings and subsequent drive into France and the Low Countries liberating Brussels and Antwerp in September 1944. He also led the British Second Army into Germany capturing Bremen, Hamburg and Kiel.
In 1946 he was appointed Commander in Chief of the Middle East.
Dempsey retired from the British Army in July 1947. He died in Yattendon, Berkshire in 1969 at the age of 72.
Dempsey retired from the British Army in July 1947. He died in Yattendon, Berkshire in 1969 at the age of 72.
Stanislaw Sosabowski
Stanisław Sosabowski was born on May 8, 1892, in Stanisławów, in a railway workers' family. In 1913 Sosabowski was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army. For his bravery he was awarded with several medals and promoted to First Lieutenant. In 1915 he was heavily wounded in action and withdrawn from the front.
In November 1918, he became a staff officer in the Ministry of War Affairs in Warsaw. Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, in 1928 he was assigned to a front-line unit, the 75th Infantry Regiment, as commanding officer of a battalion. In 1937 Sosabowski was promoted to Colonel.
At the outbreak of war Sosabowski's regiment was attached to the 8th Infantry Division.
During the Siege of Warsaw the forces of Sosabowski were outmanned and outgunned, but managed to hold all their objectives. When the general assault on Praga started on September 16, the 21st Infantry Regiment managed to repulse the attacks of German 23rd Infantry Regiment and then successfully counter-attacked and destroyed the enemy unit.On September 26, 1939, the forces led by Sosabowski bloodily repulsed the last German attack, but the following day Warsaw capitulated.
During the Siege of Warsaw the forces of Sosabowski were outmanned and outgunned, but managed to hold all their objectives. When the general assault on Praga started on September 16, the 21st Infantry Regiment managed to repulse the attacks of German 23rd Infantry Regiment and then successfully counter-attacked and destroyed the enemy unit.On September 26, 1939, the forces led by Sosabowski bloodily repulsed the last German attack, but the following day Warsaw capitulated.
Evacuation to England
Following the Polish surrender, Sosabowski was a prisoner of war, and was interred at a camp near Żyrardów. However, he escaped and remained in Warsaw under a false name, where he joined the Polish resistance. He was ordered to leave Poland and reach France with important reports on the situation in occupied Poland. He arrived in Paris, where the Polish government in exile assigned him to the Polish 4th Infantry Division as the commanding officer of infantry. On June 19, 1940, Sosabowski with approximately 6 000 Polish soldiers arrived to La Pallice, from where they were evacuated to Great Britain.
Upon his arrival to London Sosabowski decided to transform his brigade into a Parachute Brigade, the first such unit in the Polish Army.
The Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade was included in the Allied forces taking part in Operation Market Garden. A small part of the brigade with Sosabowski was dropped near Driel on September 19, but it was not until September 21 when the rest of the brigade finally arrived in the distant town of Grave, falling directly into the waiting guns of the Germans camped out around the area. The Brigade's artillery was dropped together with the British 1st Airborne Division. This prevented the Polish forces from being used effectively. Three times Poles under Sosabowski tried to force the Rhine crossing in order to help the surrounded 1st Airborne. However, the ferry they planned to use to reach the British had been sunk and Poles attempted the river crossing in small rubber boats under heavy fire. Nevertheless, at least 200 men succeeded in crossing and reinforcing the embattled British.
After the battle Sosabowski was unjustly made a scapegoat for the failure of Operation Market Garden, following a critical evaluation by Lt. Gen. Frederick Browning. He was accused of criticizing Field Marshal Montgomery and the Polish General Staff was forced to remove him as the commanding officer of his brigade on 27 December 1944. He was made the commander of guard troops and in July 1948 he was demobilised.
He was portrayed by Gene Hackman in the movie A Bridge Too Far
Sosabowski died in London on September 25, 1967. In 1969 his remains were interred in the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw, Poland.
In The Hague, on Wednesday 31 May 2006, Queen Beatrix awarded the Military Order of William to the 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade. The commander of the Brigade, the late Major General Stanislaw Sosabowski, was awarded the "Bronze Lion" posthumously.
Sosabowski died in London on September 25, 1967. In 1969 his remains were interred in the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw, Poland.
In The Hague, on Wednesday 31 May 2006, Queen Beatrix awarded the Military Order of William to the 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade. The commander of the Brigade, the late Major General Stanislaw Sosabowski, was awarded the "Bronze Lion" posthumously.
Maxwell D. Taylor (101. US Division)
Maxwell Davenport Taylor was born in Keytesville, Missouri, on 26 August 1901..jpg)
He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1922 and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Engineers in June 1922, and then attended his branch course. He served in Hawaii with the 3d Engineers, 1923–1926, and married Lydia Gardner Happer in 1925.
He transferred to the Field Artillery and served with the 10th Field Artillery, 1926–1927. He was promoted to First Lieutenant in February 1927. He studied French in Paris and was instructor in French and later Spanish at West Point, 1927–1932; he graduated from the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1933, and from the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1935.
He was promoted to Captain in August 1935 and was a student of Japanese at the American embassy in Tokyo from 1935 to 1939, with detached military attaché duty at Peking, China, in 1937. He graduated from the Army War College, 1940, and was promoted to permanent Major in July 1940. He then served in the War Plans Division and on a Hemisphere defense mission to Latin American countries in 1940. He then commanded the 12th Field Artillery Battalion, 1940–1941; and served in the Office of the Secretary of the General Staff, 1941–1942.
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D-Day In Normandy
He received temporary promotions to Lieutenant-Colonel in December 1941, to Colonel in February 1942, and Brigadier General in December 1942. He was then Chief of Staff of the 82d Airborne Division in 1942. One of the United States Army's airborne enthusiasts, he fought in Sicily and Italy as the Artillery Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division. He commanded the 101st Airborne Division in airborne assaults in France on D-Day (June 6, 1944), in Operation Market in the Netherlands and in ground operations during the Battle of the Bulge and the drive through Germany.
After the war he was chief of staff of the European Command in 1949, and commander of the United States forces in Berlin, 1949–1951; He was commander of the Eighth Army in the final operations of the Korean War in 1953 and then initiated the Korean armed forces assistance program, in 1953 and 1954. He commanded United States Forces, Far East, and the Eighth Army 1954–1955, and was Commander in Chief, United Nations Command, 1955; He was Chief of Staff of the United States Army, 30 June 1955–30 June 1959 and opposed dependence upon a massive retaliation doctrine, pushing for an increase in conventional forces to ensure a capability of flexible response, guided the transition to a "pentomic" concept, and directed Army participation in sensitive operations at Little Rock, Lebanon, Taiwan, and Berlin.
General Taylor retired from active service in July 1959 and was recalled as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1962–1964. He again retired and became Ambassador to South Vietnam, 1964–1965; he was special Military Advisor to President John F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson and was President of the Institute of Defense Analysis, 1966–1969.
General Taylor died in Washington, D.C., on 19 April 1987.
General Taylor died in Washington, D.C., on 19 April 1987.
Frederick Browning
Lieutenant General Sir Frederick “Boy” Browning was born on December 20, 1896. He began his military career with the Grenadier Guards in the First World War, during which he was decorated with the Distinguished Service Order and the Croix de Guerre. In 1916, he had the honour of meeting Winston Churchill in his dugout, who, having resigned from the Government in the aftermath of the Gallipoli fiasco, was then a Lieutenant-Colonel in the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers. He became a Captain in 1920, and a Major in 1928. Promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel followed in 1935. In 1935 he was the commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, Grenadier Guards. He held that position until about the time of the outbreak of World War II, when he became Commandant of the Small Arms School as a Brigadier. In 1940, he was given command of the 24th Guards Brigade.
In 1941 Churchill, who had by then become Prime Minister, appointed him as commander of the British 1st Airborne Division. He held that position through the unit's fighting in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy.
In 1943, he was given command of British First Airborne Corps, which in 1944 became part of First Allied Airborne Army (with Browning now a Lieutenant-General). US Lieutenant-General Lewis H Brereton gained command of the Army and Browning became deputy commander and retained his position as commander of the British Airborne Corps.
Second In Command Of Market Garden
Browning was second-in-command of the airborne forces from the First Allied Airborne Army committed during Operation Market Garden, landing with a tactical headquarters near Nijmegen but finding it difficult to command the troops due to communications failures and their geographical separation. After the battle Browning's critical evaluation of the contribution of Polish forces led to the removal of Polish Major-General Stanisław Sosabowski as the commanding officer of the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade. This is now being seen as unjustly scapegoating by the inner circle of British higher military ranks.
Although Field Marshal Montgomery attached no blame to Browning for the failure of Operation Market Garden, he received no further promotion above Lieutenant General. He subsequently became Chief of Staff to Lord Mountbatten, Commander-in-Chief of the South East Asia Command. His last major military post was as Military Secretary of the War Office, 1946-1948. General Browning died on March 14, 1965.
Kurt Student
Kurt Student was born on May 12th, 1890. He joined the German Army and received his commission in 1912. In 1913, he transferred into what was to become the Luftwaffe, but was then called the German Army Air Service. During World War One, he served as a reconnaissance pilot and he flew bombers.
In 1934 and with Hitler now Germany's leader, Student joined the Luftwaffe. Within Germany, Hitler had made it clear that he wanted to expand this part of Germany's military. Student played a key role in the development of the Luftwaffe. In keeping with the whole of Guderian's Blitzkrieg philosophy, Student was ordered to form Germany's first ever parachute battalion in 1938. Such a military unit was almost unheard of (though Soviet Russia had been training parachutists in the Red Army) but it was to play a major part in the whole concept of 'lightening war'.
Student's new fighting force was not used in the attack on Poland. In one sense, the overwhelming power of the German military meant that it really was not needed against the Poles. However, the main reason was Hitler's desire to keep such a new unit secret until Blitzkrieg was unleashed against Western Europe.
German paratroopers were used with success in the campaign in Norway, Belgium and Holland. In particular, the parachutist attack on Rotterdam all but took the heart out of the Dutch defence such was its speed and ferocity. However, during the attack on Holland, Student was shot in the head and his injuries were such that he did not return to duty until January 1941.
The input of Student's parachutists in the various attacks on Western Europe had done a lot to convince Hitler that they were an important aspect of his military. In May 1941, they were used in the attack on Crete. Here, Student's parachutists suffered heavy losses despite their ultimate victory on the Mediterranean island. Despite their actual success in Crete, Hitler was shocked by the number of Student's men who were killed in action and he ordered a halt to their use in any future large-scale military operation.
As a result of this order, Student's men were denied the opportunity for any more large scale raid by parachute. After D-Day, the 1st Parachute Regiment was used in an attempt to halt Montgomery's advance to the Rhine - but it was action on the ground. Such was the Allies command of the air, that any chance of a large scale attack by German parachutists was effectively gone - though it was still forbidden by Hitler.
Karl Student was put on trial in May 1946 for war crimes committed in Greece and Crete. He died in 1978.
Karl Student was put on trial in May 1946 for war crimes committed in Greece and Crete. He died in 1978.