Bernhard Law Montgomery

Bernard Law Montgomery was born in November 1887 in London. In 1907, he entered the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and was commissioned a lieutenant of infantry. During World War I he served with distinction and earned the D.S.O. for conspicuous gallantry after being wounded twice in the chest and knee in October 1914.

During the inter-war years, Montgomery steadily rose through the levels of British Army. He was the Chief of Staff for the 47th London Division at the age of 31. In 1939 he was given command of the 3rd Division of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

When the British Army was trapped at Dunkirk he was given command of the 2nd Corps.

By 1941, Montgomery commanded the South Eastern Army with troops stationed in the Home Counties of Surrey, Kent and Sussex.

His maxim of 'training, training and more training' combined with a penchant for organization helped rebuild and refit the British Army and helped alleviate the fears that Britain would be helpless against a German cross-channel invasion.

His skill and leadership style was not lost on his superiors, and on Aug. 10, 1942 Montgomery took command of the Eighth British Army in North Africa. The Eighth Army, after retreating hundreds of miles across Libya and Tunisia in the face of Rommel's Afrika Corps, suffered from a lack of morale and decisive leadership. Like his resurrection of the South Eastern Army in England, Montgomery focused on training and military doctrine. His singular success was his integration of operations and command between the Army and Royal Air Force. He was put to the test two months after his arrival in Africa, when the British met the Afrika Corps at El Alamein in Egypt on Oct. 23, 1942. With this victory, Montgomery sounded the death knell for the German Army in Africa. Even with the brief resurgence of the Afrika Corps at Kasserine Pass on Feb. 20, 1943, Montgomery continued to exert pressure with his Eighth Army out of Egypt and constant harassment by the Desert Air Force. The Afrika Corps capitulated in March 1943 with Rommel being evacuated by air to Italy.

After his victory in North Africa, Montgomery was recalled to England to serve under General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander. He commanded all Allied Ground troops during the D-Day invasion in June 1944. After the breakout of the Cherbourg Peninsula, he commanded an Army Group for the push up through Belgium and the Netherlands. In August 1944, he was promoted to Field Marshal and took command of all British and Canadian troops. Montgomery orchestrated Operation Market Garden, the largest airborne attack of WWII. The operation was an airborne attack deep in the enemy's rear areas to be launched in mid-September 1944, in conjunction with a ground offensive by the British Second Army. The idea was to attack through the Netherlands and attack Germany from the West, avoiding the heavily fortified Siegfried Line and isolating any German forces to the west along the coast. Operation 'Market' would entail capturing the bridges between Eindhoven and Arnhem by means of airborne landings of the 1st Airborne Corps of the 1st Allied Airborne Army. Operation 'Garden' would be the simultaneous advance of the 30th Army Corps of the 2nd British Army from Belgium across occupied bridges to Arnhem. The operation was a failure due to a combination of poor communications, the surprise presence of crack German troops in the vicinity and bad weather which prevented the reinforcement by air of the airborne contingent. However it did succeed in liberating the Southern Netherlands.

After the war Montgomery was made chief of the British Imperial Staff in 1946 as well as being named the 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. He served as deputy commander of NATO from 1951 to 1958.

Bernard Law Montgomery

BERNARD LAW MONTGOMERY, (1887-1976), British field marshal, who was one of the leading Allied commanders of World War II . Of Ulster stock, he was born in London on Nov. 17, 1887. After attending St. Paul's School, London, he graduated from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, in 1908 and received a commission as a lieutenant in the infantry. He served in France and Belgium during World War I. Rising in rank to major general, he commanded a division in Palestine and Transjordan in 1938-1939.

At the outbreak of World War II he went to France in command of a division. Having evacuated his men from Dunkirk in 1940, he was given command of the 5th Corps in Britain. In 1941 he was assigned to a key post in the defense against a possible German invasion.

On Aug. 18, 1942, Montgomery assumed command of the Eighth Army ("Army of the Nile), which had been driven back into Egypt by German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. In North Africa during the ensuing months, " Monty displayed the brilliant leadership that firmly established his reputation as one of the greatest generals of the war. After meticulous preparation (a Montgomery hallmark), he launched an attack on the Axis forces entrenched at El Alamein in northern Egypt on October 23 and, when their lines broke, pursued the enemy remnants into Libya and beyond. He thus became the first of the Allied generals to inflict a decisive defeat on a German army. On November 10 he was knighted and promoted to full general.

Still leading the Eighth Army, Montgomery participated in the Allied landing in Sicily in July 1943 and led the troops invading the Italian mainland two months later. In January 1944 he returned to Britain to command all land forces under General Eisenhower preparing for the invasion of France.

After the Allied landing in Normandy in June 1944, Montgomery directed all land operations until August, when the command was reorganized. He then took command of the Second Army Group, consisting of British and Canadian armies, which held the northern end of the Allied line. On September 1 he was made a field marshal, the highest rank in the British Army.

Montgomery suffered his worst defeat of the war in September 1944 when his planned crossing of the Rhine at the Dutch city of Arnhem was turned back with the loss of 6,000 airborne troops. Responsibility for the debacle has been the source of continuing controversy.

On Dec. 17, 1944, after a German thrust through the Ardennes had split the Allied Twelfth Army Group, Montgomery was given temporary command of all British and American forces on the north side of the bulging line. On May 4, 1945, he accepted the surrender of the German troops in the Netherlands and northwest Germany. On May 22, Montgomery became chief of British forces occupying Germany and a member of the Allied Control Commission.

Raised to the peerage as 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein in 1946, he was made chief of the imperial general staff. In 1948-1951 he served as chairman of the permanent defense organization of the Western European Union, and he was deputy supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces from 1951 until his retirement in 1958. He died in Alton, Hampshire, on March 24, 1976. His writings include Memoirs (1958).