COSSAC - Stephen C. Kepher

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operation was transferred to AFHQ and to the commanders responsible for the operation. By March 1943 both his divisions had been stripped away and fed into the Mediterranean battle. His 1st Corps, now reduced to just a headquarters, was to be reformed with the assignment of training as part of the spearhead for the eventual cross-Channel attack.

      Having given the matter some thought, Morgan began to press higher authorities to be more specific. Where are we to attack, when, and with what? He fully understood and advocated for troops to get used to the idea of fighting “in some country in which they would arrive after a long sea voyage and where they would find strange conditions among a population which might range anywhere from demonstratively friendly to definitely hostile.”31

      He noted from his contact with COHQ and in planning for the various deployments of 125 Force that no two beaches are alike. Therefore, it seemed to him, that some correlation between training and operations needed to exist. As he said, “it was essential to narrow down the various possibilities with which one might be confronted on some future D-Day.”32 In a conversation with his old friend from their service together in India, Gen. Lord Hastings “Pug” Ismay, Morgan expressed his strong opinion that someone should be appointed who would do something about this lack of direction and clarity. Ismay was now deputy secretary to the War Cabinet and military advisor to Winston Churchill. He suggested that Morgan write a paper on the subject, which Morgan then did and sent off to his old friend.33

      In early March Ismay invited Morgan down to London to discuss the matter further, and, upon reporting to Ismay’s office, Morgan was handed a stack of documents that represented the work done by various people at various times related to a cross-Channel attack. Morgan was asked to review the material and to produce for presentation to the COS his concept of “a plan for what might be done next.” It was due the next day. Morgan submitted a memorandum but admitted that he didn’t think much of his first attempt “nor did the Chiefs of Staff, so I was given a second chance.”34

      Not yet having new divisions assigned to 1st Corps and being free from any attachment to any potential project, Morgan, on his second attempt, gave the chiefs a straightforward and honest analysis of what he thought, which was also witnessed by Ismay and Mountbatten. He then left the meeting.

      Not long after, on 12 March, standing in an elevator at New Scotland Yard, while heading to a meeting at COHQ, Morgan got an indication of what was to be his fate. Just as the elevator door was starting to close, Mountbatten jumped in and offered his enthusiastic, if premature, congratulations, notwithstanding the fact that the elevator was jammed full of people of all ranks. As far as Mountbatten was concerned, Morgan, with his presentation, had apparently talked himself into a job. One problem for Morgan was that he wasn’t sure he wanted to transition from being a corps commander, albeit one without any troops at the moment, back to a senior staff officer for what sounded like a decidedly dodgy and not yet clearly defined project. “As soon as I could emerge from Combined Operations Headquarters I … made for the nearest open space, the Temple Gardens, where I walked with Bobbie [his aide] to regain composure, a process that was completed shortly afterward at the bar of the Cavalry Club.”35 How he traveled from Richmond Terrace, across from Downing Street, to the Temple Gardens, just beyond King’s College London, and then back to the Cavalry Club in Mayfair is not explained. With his composure regained, at least for the moment, Morgan began to reflect on what needed to be done, if he were to be given this new assignment.

      — 3 —

      “FOR WHAT ARE WE TO PLAN?”

      Fifteen months before General Morgan’s fateful day at New Scotland Yard, the British Joint Planning Staff in December 1941 submitted an analysis to the COS that was a general outline of what a reentry into the Continent might look like. The COS then asked the Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, the newly appointed Gen. Sir Bernard Paget, to review the paper and to consult with the commanders of Bomber Command, Fighter Command, and the Royal Navy’s Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, in providing his evaluation.1

      In January 1942 the COS gave further guidance to Paget:

      German morale and strength in the West may deteriorate at any time in the future to a degree that will permit us to establish forces on the Continent. You are, therefore, to plan and prepare for a return to the Continent to take advantage of such a situation….

      You should continue your study of a major raiding operation against one of the main French Atlantic ports in case it becomes desirable to carry one out but preparations for such an operation are not to be allowed to delay your preparations for your primary task.

      The Advisor on Combined Operations [is] to be consulted at all stages of the planning.2

      Around the same time, Mountbatten and Commo. John Hughes-Hallett, representing Combined Operations, were invited to join General Paget in attending a staff exercise conducted by the various Home Forces commanders. Each of the generals and their staffs were instructed to prepare and present “an outline plan for the seizure of the Cherbourg Peninsula, to hold it for a week, and then withdraw back to England.”3 In other words, to plan something similar to SLEDGEHAMMER, or IMPERATOR, but in Normandy, not the Pas-de-Calais.

      Lt. Gen. Bernard Montgomery, commander of South Eastern Command, presented last, and “after explaining the hazards of such an operation, went on to point out that it would be easier and more worthwhile not to withdraw the troops but to flood the Carentan Marshes and hold the Peninsula.”4 Although this would create a lodgment and a base for future offensive actions, Montgomery did not address how the troops were to break out and drive toward Germany through the German troops that undoubtedly would be in strong defensive positions on the other side of the marshes. Still, it made a change from considering the Pas-de-Calais.

      From these modest beginnings emerged the Combined Commanders, sometimes called the Combined Commanders-in-Chief. The Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, Sir Bernard Paget; Air Officer Commanding Fighter Command, Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory; and Sir Charles Little, Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, had many duties. Being the Combined Commanders was a somewhat informal collateral duty as the British armed forces slowly reoriented themselves from a purely defensive posture to consideration of offensive action from the British Isles. The RAF’s Bomber Command went its own way as a result of a directive issued by the Air Staff in February 1942. It was authorized to bomb Germany “without restriction,” and Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris went at it with a will.5 He waged his own offensive against German cities, believing that charring enough German acreage would make a cross-Channel attack unnecessary.

      The Combined Commanders were required to consult with Combined Operations Headquarters when developing their plans. Mountbatten’s unique position of being both head of an independent headquarters and a de facto member of the COS created problems on occasion, particularly if he disagreed with the Combined Commanders, although perhaps less often than it could have done.

      The Combined Commanders took up the question of crossing the Channel and reached the conclusion that the Pas-de-Calais was the proper landing area, for one chief reason: in 1942 RAF fighters were unable to provide air cover in any meaningful way over other possible beaches. The Pas-de-Calais was also the closest viable landing site to Antwerp, which was identified as a critical port of supply for a drive into Germany. Mountbatten argued instead for the Cherbourg Peninsula (and, by extension, for the French Atlantic ports)—having seen the merit in the idea presented by General Montgomery and made it his own. He also thought that air cover could be provided by fitting the fighters with auxiliary fuel tanks.

      Gen. Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the Imperial General Staff and chair of the COS, also believed that the Pas-de-Calais was the proper location. On 10 March 1942 Mountbatten attended the COS’ weekly meeting for the first time. As noted in Brooke’s diary, they discussed “the problem of assistance to Russia by operations in France, with [a] large raid or lodgment. [It was] decided [the] only hope was to try to draw off air forces from Russia and for that purpose [the] raid must be carried off on Calais front. Now directed investigations to proceed further.”6 Still, Mountbatten was keen to go his own way.

      He

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