Sicily '43. James Holland

had seen plenty of action in Tunisia, and like many Americans who survived the early fighting in that campaign, he had emerged a considerably better soldier – and officer. After Kasserine, a number of the American units had been rotated through the battle schools that had been set up in Algeria on the model of those originally established by the British following the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940. These were the brainchild of General Sir Harold Alexander, who had the idea of training conscripts in simple battle drills to which they would react automatically in times of stress – orders, such as ‘Down, crawl, observe, fire!’ Alexander had also recognized that some kind of battle inoculation was needed before green troops were subjected to the terrors of dive-bombing, shelling, mortaring and machine-gunning. This could only be done using live ammunition. Finally, he also realized that it was essential that all troops were battle fit. For the time, such training was quite innovative, and battle school soon became a key part of a young conscript’s training.

      Despite his earlier time with the British, Scheffel was one of those packed off to battle school. He reckoned he had been pretty lucky to have made some mistakes and yet lived to tell the tale, so had paid keen attention to all he had been taught. While there, he spent an evening with a group of junior British officers in a mess tent drinking local wine and shooting the breeze. Most didn’t think they had much chance of surviving. ‘We sat there giving coarse opinions on the war,’ recalled Scheffel.6 ‘We gave everybody hell – Patton, Eisenhower, Churchill, Montgomery, Alexander – we didn’t miss anybody except ourselves. We were the only good guys in the war, serving at the mercy of fools.’

      They’d been grousing a while when the tent flap opened and in stepped a trim British officer whom all recognized immediately, the American included. Hastily they got to their feet and saluted. The visitor addressed Scheffel.

      ‘You’re an American?’7,

      ‘Yes, sir,’ Scheffel replied. ‘Oklahoma.’

      ‘I’ve been to Fort Sill,’ he said, then motioned to the group – ‘Sit down, gentlemen’ – before joining them. He confessed he’d heard some of what they’d been saying, but swiftly allayed their fears. He, too, had been a young officer once. He understood their concerns, and reassured them a corner had been turned. Eventually, ready to leave, he stood. ‘I want you to remember this,’ he said.8 ‘Gentlemen, the Boche are beginning to lose this war. If you think it’s bad on our side, just be glad you’re not on theirs.’

      Their visitor had been none other than General Alexander himself, at the time newly arrived in Tunisia to take command of 18th Army Group.

      Alexander – or ‘Alex’, as he was always known – was really a rather remarkable character, although not one ever to blow his own trumpet. In the world of high command, where ego and personal ambition often went hand-in-hand, Alex was notable for having very little of the former and almost none of the latter. Certainly, there were few people more prone to self-deprecation. Such unassuming modesty had been drummed into him during a childhood in which he had been brought up to respect notions of honour, duty and impeccable manners in all things and at all times.

      His had been an aristocratic upbringing: a large estate in Northern Ireland, school at Harrow, then a commission in the Irish Guards. Charming, well connected and with no small amount of dash, he effortlessly excelled at all sports, was a highly talented artist and even took up motor racing at Brooklands. The four long years of the First World War developed him as a soldier. He quite openly enjoyed it, despite – or rather, because of – spending almost the entire war with fighting troops. At the First Battle of Ypres in November 1914 he was seriously wounded in the thigh and hand and invalided home. Recovering well and determined to get back to the front as soon as possible, he walked 64 miles in one day to prove to a cautious doctor that he was fit enough. Sure enough, by February 1915 he was back, and later that summer led his company at the Battle of Loos. His reputation had grown rapidly, notably for exceptional personal courage, but also for extraordinary imperturbability and the gift of quick decision. Always leading from the front and with no regard to his own personal safety, he soon had the complete devotion and respect of all those who served under him.

      Though wounded twice more, Alex survived the carnage of the Somme, Cambrai and Passchendaele, and in 1917, aged just twenty-five, became acting lieutenant-colonel commanding the 2nd Battalion. By the Armistice, he had earned a DSO and bar, an MC and the French Légion d’Honneur, and had been mentioned in dispatches five times. Nor did his combat record stop with the end of war. In 1919 he was sent to command the Baltic Landwehr, part of the Latvian Army, in the war against Russia. Since most of the men in this force were of German origin, he was unique among the current Allied commanders in having led German troops in battle. Staff college and staff appointments were followed by stints of further action along the North-West Frontier between India and Afghanistan, where he was one of very few guardsmen to command a brigade. By the outbreak of war in 1939, this gilded officer was one of the army’s youngest major-generals and commanding 1st Division. He went with them to France, and after the British retreat in May 1940 was left behind to supervise the final withdrawal of British troops. Alex, in fact, was the final British soldier to be evacuated – the last man out of Dunkirk.

      Remaining in England for the next two years of war, Alex realized that the vast majority of infantry troops under his command were simply not ready for battle, and it was at this point that he instigated the battle schools. It was also during this time that he particularly came to Churchill’s notice. The prime minister was certainly influenced by Alex’s easy charm and illustrious background, but also by his calm control and a military record that was second to none. Even when sent to oversee the retreat from Burma in May 1942, Alex had impressed with his unflappable ability to make the best of a bad situation. And he looked the part, too: although by early 1943 a rather shabby military chic had developed with Eighth Army, Alex always looked immaculate. There was a bit of sartorial flair to his style. ‘As calm and serene as a lecturer in a college,’ noted the American war correspondent John Gunther.9 ‘Everyone calls Montgomery “Monty” but Alex is General Alex.’

      By early 1943, there was no British commander with a greater reputation, not even Montgomery. Now a full general, Alex was also unique in having commanded men in battle at every single officer rank. He never swore and never really lost his temper – not publicly, at any rate – and also somehow managed to speak German, French, Italian, Russian and even Urdu fluently. He had also developed a very sound sense of judgement and, perhaps even more importantly, an understanding of the men under his command, including the recognition that confidence and good morale were absolutely vital ingredients for success – especially with largely conscript armies. And this in turn meant that the approach to battle – the preparation and the removal of potential stumbling blocks – was the key to victory.

      This stood him in good stead as Eighth Army began to claw their way back across North Africa in the summer and autumn of 1942. Although Alamein is seen as Montgomery’s victory, Alex – appointed C-in-C Middle East at the beginning of August 1942, and so Monty’s boss – deserves every bit as much credit for that crucial turning point in British fortunes. It had been Alex who had first made clear there would be no more retreats. It had also been Alex, arriving at Alamein in the middle of the battle with matters not going entirely according to plan, who subtly suggested a different approach to his army commander.

      When Alex had been appointed commander of the newly formed 18th Army Group after the Casablanca Conference, his brief had been to finish the battle in Tunisia as quickly as possible. Reaching Tunisia immediately following the setback at Kasserine, he had hurtled up and down the front to see the situation with his own eyes, and spent the first week swiftly reorganizing his forces into greater concentrations, plugging gaps and then counter-attacking. Within ten days of his arrival at the front, the Kasserine defeat had been reversed, allowing Alex breathing space to lick his forces into shape and to develop a new plan to complete the Allied victory in North Africa. Raw and undertrained units were whisked off to the battle schools in Algeria, while Alex himself spent as much time as possible at his tactical headquarters camp near the front and visiting as many troops as he could – including Charlie Scheffel, on whom he had certainly made an impression. ‘I had great respect for Alexander,’ he noted.10 ‘Maybe my meeting him had something to do with that opinion … but