Montgomery by Malcolm Pill

Author:Malcolm Pill [Malcolm Pill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912690930
Publisher: Unicorn Publishing Group
Published: 2019-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

MONTGOMERY AND GRIGG

The two men had met in North Africa in June 1943. De Guingand had served under Grigg in the War Office when Hore-Belisha was Secretary of State and, not for the first or last time, was able to facilitate good relations between Montgomery and another.80 Letters between Secretary of State and General were friendly and informal. Grigg referred, in a letter of 6 October 1943, to the headquarters where Montgomery had written the second edition of his ‘Notes on High Command’ in September 1943, as Montgomery’s ‘Patmos’, the island where Saint John wrote the Book of Revelation.81 Grigg also expressed a wish to visit Montgomery in Italy: ‘Much better the sirocco with the 8th Army than the miasma of indecision in Whitehall’.

In North-West Europe, the relationship had a bad start when Montgomery took command in January 1944. Having talked to his generals on 13 January, he began making changes without waiting for War Office approval. This was reported to Grigg. In his narrative of the campaign known as the Log, Dawnay recorded that Grigg ‘strongly disapproved’ of Montgomery’s disregard for War Office authority.82 Brooke recorded in his diary for 24 January: ‘had to tell [Montgomery] off for falling foul of both the King [on a matter of military dress] and the S of S in a very short time’.83 At the initiative of Brooke, Montgomery met Grigg on the following day and explained how much had to be done in a short time: ‘He apologised if he had gone too fast but hoped that Sir James Grigg would trust his judgment.’84

The talk, wrote Montgomery, ‘did a great deal to clear the air’ and was the ‘beginning of a friendship’. He described Grigg as the best Secretary of State we have ever had. Drawing to a close his personal diary for January to March 1944, he described Grigg as one of his ‘firm friends’.85 Signing off his personal diary for April to May 1944, he wrote of Grigg: ‘I like him very much, he is a grand chap and we could not have a better S of S’. On 1 June he recorded that Grigg ‘is quite first class … quite selfless, single-minded in his desire to do the best for the Army, and a man of strong and sterling character … I like him immensely and would do anything for him’.86

On the same day, and with embarkation for Europe imminent, Montgomery expressed his thanks in a letter to Grigg. He said how very grateful he was for all the help and guidance he and his staff had received from the War Office. At the time ‘when our preparations are completed and before battle is joined’ he thanked the War Office for its ‘never failing help and guidance’: ‘If we gain successes in the field, they will be gained by the whole team – as much yours as ours’.87 In his acknowledgement, Grigg expressed confidence in the Army and wished it the best of luck. Seldom can the War

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