Commando General Read online

  Bob always insisted that the word ‘Commando’ should apply to the unit and not to the individual soldier who served in it. I have decided to stick to this practice, which was certainly the correct one at the time of which I write, although from the early days both the men themselves and the general public began to use the word interchangeably.

  I hoped originally to be able to call the book The First Commando General. It became clear to me at an early stage, however, that there were two other contenders for the title, Charles Haydon, who led the Commandos as a brigadier and, as a senior officer at Combined Operations HQ , was subsequently promoted to general officer rank before Bob, and Robert Sturges, a major general already at the time of his appointment to command the Special Services Group. Bob himself would not have cared. He was immensely proud to have been in at the beginning and still there when peace was declared, as a general, but also as a Commando soldier.

  Prologue

  Darkness enveloped the landing craft as it headed towards the shore. Standing close to the coxswain, the brigadier could see little and hear nothing over the sound of the engines. Suddenly, from behind the vessel, the sky was illuminated as dozens of naval guns fired simultaneously, and within less than a minute he could see responding flashes away on the starboard beam. For a few moments all remained quiet ahead, but then he heard the sharp crack of guns from the destroyer lying offshore and saw explosions as the shells struck their targets. He knew that his advanced detachment was about to hit the beach and that he was hard on their heels.

  Not for the first time, the brigadier was about to land on an enemy-held shore but this time it was different, the return to the mainland of Europe after years of frustration and disappointment. Like all those around him he had learnt earlier that night about the Italian surrender, but unlike most of them he believed that the opposition would still be ferocious. Nevertheless, as the landing craft began its final run-in to the beach, he was confident that the plan was good, that morale was high and that the seemingly endless months of training had furnished the skills for the job ahead. The fighting would be hard, but the outcome was not in doubt.

  Chapter 1

  Joe

  By the early eighteenth century the Laycock family had been established in the West Riding of Yorkshire for many generations, their name supposedly deriving from that of a village near Keighley. More than one of their members acted as Agent to the Dukes of Devonshire at Bolton Abbey. In 1732 Joseph Laycock moved north to Winlaton, County Durham, to work as the manager of Crowley’s Iron Works. His grandson, also Joseph, was born there in 1798 and, after serving an apprenticeship at Crowley’s, entered business on his own account when the iron works closed, succeeding initially in obtaining a contract from the Royal Navy for the manufacture of chains and anchors. When the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway was founded in 1825, he bid for and obtained the contract to supply 500 goods wagons, which began to run on the railway when it was opened in 1834. He also bought land on which he believed railways would have to be built, as turned out to be the case. In due course he became Chairman of the Blyth & Tyne Railway and then, after its acquisition by the much larger North Eastern Railway, a director of the latter. In 1852, by which time he had become an extremely wealthy man, he acquired Low Gosforth House, near Newcastle, with an estate of 287 acres. A longstanding member of the Newcastle Corporation, he became the city’s Mayor in 1858 and in the same year acquired the Seghill Colliery

  Robert Laycock, Joseph’s only child by his marriage to Barbara Nicholson, was born in 1833. After graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge, he was called to the Bar and practised for a time on the Northern Circuit, but by 1866 he was working for his father, in which capacity he was asked to arrange a visit to Seghill by a party of Austrian businessmen. They were accompanied by a young lady called Annie Allhusen, with whom he fell in love and subsequently married. Her father, Christian Allhusen, was a remarkable man, who had been born in Kiel, at that time in Denmark, in 1805. With Europe in deep depression after the Napoleonic Wars he was sent by his family to live and work in Newcastle, in the first instance as an apprentice grain merchant. In due course he found an opportunity to trade on his own account, before moving on to the manufacture of caustic soda, which earned him a considerable fortune, some of which was spent in the purchase of of Elswick Hall, a large estate not far from Low Gosforth. Allhusen became a British citizen in 1835 through a Private Act of Parliament.

  By the time of the wedding Robert was not getting on at all well with his father, who was evidently a difficult man, ‘a bully to his workmen and a tyrant to those dependent on him’.1 Joseph told his son that on his marriage he would buy him an estate, but it would have to be at least 100 miles away from Gosforth, the only condition being that he would have his grandchildren back at Low Gosforth for their holidays. The selected property was Wiseton Hall, a substantial country house in North Nottinghamshire, which had been originally built in 1771 and was much enlarged subsequently. It had earlier been the home of the Acklom family, whose heiress had married Earl Spencer, a leader of the campaign to pass the Reform Bill in 1832. Having bought the house and furnished it as cheaply as possible, Joseph declared that no further money would be forthcoming to the newlyweds, who would have to live on the income of the Home Farm of some 400 acres. All hopes of a brilliant social life disappeared, and Robert turned to politics, but failed to be elected as one of the two Members of Parliament for North Nottinghamshire in 1868 and for Nottingham in 1874.

  Robert and Annie produced a family very quickly, Joseph Frederick, known to all as Joe, being born in 1867 and Barbara in 1868. Whilst their parents remained disappointed with their lot, the youngsters had a happy childhood, relying on their own wits and the company of the village children. Joe in particular was highly inventive with respect to games and, as he grew up, became fascinated by machinery, on one occasion appropriating a steam plough whilst the farm workers were at lunch, and driving it into a ditch. He was in due course sent off to prep school at Temple Grove, in East Sheen, before going on to Eton. Holidays were duly spent at Low Gosforth, where Joe’s grandfather kept a pony for him to ride, and at a family house in Tynemouth.

  Tensions continued at Wiseton, with debts mounting up due to Robert’s extravagance and Annie’s inability to economize. Annie very nearly ran away, stopped from doing so only because she could not bear to leave her daughter. Shortly afterwards Robert was asked to stand again for Parliament in the 1880 general election, but this time for North Lincolnshire. Like his father he was a committed Liberal, but North Lincolnshire had two sitting Conservative members, although one of the seats had been held by a Liberal member from 1857 to 1874. Initially Robert refused to let his name go forward for a third time, but he was persuaded to do so by Annie, who felt that it would give him a goal and, if he was successful, an occupation, and might very well change their fortunes. He lodged his nomination at Brigg Town Hall with minutes to spare, disappointing the two Conservative candidates, who were expecting a walkover.

  Robert fought a strong campaign, denouncing the policies of Disraeli and advocating reform, particularly of the land laws. The election resulted in a Liberal landslide nationally, and in North Lincolnshire Robert received the largest number of votes in the constituency, to the dismay of one of the Conservative candidates. Robert was delighted and Annie was ecstatic. Even his father was pleased, reimbursing Robert for the costs of his campaign. The only mild disappointment was that the house which Robert and Annie took in Mayfair, in order for him to be able to undertake his duties at Westminster, had to be shared with his parents.

  A year later disaster struck. First of all, Joseph died. Nine days later Robert was suddenly taken ill in Eastbourne and died in a hotel there. Annie was left alone with two relatively young children, but for the first time in her marriage she had no financial worries, although the estate was to go substantially to Joe once he had attained his majority. At the time he was still at Eton, where he was socially successful but academical
ly hopeless. Annie was keen that he should go on to Oxford, but neither Eton nor two successive crammers could produce the required results. Annie then suggested that he should join the Royal Horse Guards, but Joe persuaded her that the Yeomanry would be much more appropriate, since it would leave him time to look after the estate, which still included significant holdings of land and industrial businesses in the North East.

  In 1887 Annie remarried, this time to Lord D’Arcy Osborne,2 who, unlike some of her suitors, was approved of by her children. Joe attained his majority in the following year, upon which he assumed full control of his fortune from his trustees and set up his household at Wiseton Hall, with Barbara acting as his hostess. They were keen entertainers and devoted both to field sports, taking a house for the season in Bicester Hunt country, and to cricket, creating a splendid ground in front of the house which remains in use to this day.

  Brother and sister had by then also developed a considerable enthusiasm for sailing. They started with a small schooner of 150 tons, the Nore, which was rapidly followed by a larger vessel of 250 tons, the Lady Sibell. In 1892 Joe, who had always been interested in ship design, produced some outline plans for a 230ft, 1,500 ton clipper, which was in essence a three-quarter sized version of the Cutty Sark. The basic design for the Valhalla was handed over to a well known naval architect, W. C. Storey, who produced detailed plans, including auxiliary steam power. The main construction contract was placed with Rammage & Ferguson of Leith, and the vessel was fitted out in Southampton. The critics were dubious, but she turned out to have excellent sailing qualities. The crew numbered 95, the majority of whom had served previously in the Royal Navy, and the vessel was well armed with two Hotchkiss cannons and a Maxim machine gun, as well as an assortment of rifles, pistols and cutlasses. The maiden voyage, between 22 March and 1 August 1893, took Joe and ten other ‘idlers’ from Southampton to Madeira and then into and around the Mediterranean to Constantinople, across the Black Sea to Sevastopol and back in due course to Cowes, a distance of 9,632 miles. The stay in port at Cannes was timed to coincide with Barbara’s wedding there to Edward Mitchell-Innes, a barrister who later became a King’s Counsel. In order to gain further experience, in 1894 Joe sailed to Australia in the clipper Pericles, insisting on carrying out the job of every man aboard during the long voyage.

  Having declined his mother’s suggestion that he should obtain a regular commission, Joe was as good as his word about joining the Yeomanry and was duly commissioned as a subaltern in his local regiment, the Sherwood Rangers. He was a keen and assiduous member, attending all the necessary courses and the annual camps. On one occasion during the latter, he led a squadron successfully across Salisbury Plain by night, a manoeuvre which brought him to the attention of John French, a coming officer in the Regular Army and himself a cavalryman. The two men formed a friendship, and French promised that, should there be a war in which he was involved, he would take Joe with him in some capacity.

  In the summer of 1899 tensions between the British Government in South Africa and the two Boer republics in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State materially increased. The main issue at stake was voting rights for the ‘Uitlanders’, the largely British inhabitants of Johannesburg, Kimberley and other gold and diamond mining towns. The Boers were fearful that any concession would in due course result in a non-Boer majority, at least in the Transvaal, and regarded this as part of a ploy by the British to bring the two republics into a new federation under their control. The talks broke down and, on 9 October, the Government of the Transvaal delivered an ultimatum to the British to withdraw all troops on their borders and those of the Orange Free State, failing which war would be declared.

  Even before this, British reinforcements had been arriving in South Africa. French had been earmarked to command a cavalry brigade and, true to his promise, sent Joe a telegram in mid-September, asking if he would like to join him on a ship leaving Southampton in a few days. Joe responded immediately: ‘Delighted to come, can you get me recognized?’ He was not part of French’s official staff, neither at that time was his regiment earmarked to provide a contingent, although it did so later. He had no alternative, therefore, but to travel as a private individual and trust that French would be able to engineer his official appointment in due course.

  French and his staff, who were led by Major Douglas Haig, embarked in RMS Norman on 23 September 1899 and arrived in Cape Town, via Madeira, on 11 October, just as war was declared. As the cavalry which he would be commanding was yet to arrive, French was sent temporarily to Ladysmith, where troops under Lieutenant General Sir George White were facing a large force of Boers. On the very morning of their arrival on 20 October, French, accompanied by Haig and Joe and with a mixed force including an infantry brigade under Ian Hamilton, was sent to Elandslaagte to investigate reports that the Boers had taken the town. In order to push them back French carried out a textbook manoeuvre, involving a cavalry reconnaissance, an infantry attack and then a cavalry charge, which resulted in a decisive victory. Joe was employed as a supernumerary staff officer, with a roving commission around the battlefield on French’s behalf. This enabled him to participate in Hamilton’s attack, in which he distinguished himself in disabling two Boer guns by dismantling their breech-blocks and carrying them back to the British lines. He also enabled news of the victory to be communicated to White by tapping the telephone lines alongside the railway.

  Notwithstanding this success, White ordered French’s force to fall back on Ladysmith. With the Boers closing in around the town, French, who saw no role for the cavalry in a siege, asked permission to withdraw. Against the wishes of White, the order came through from Cape Town for him to do so, and he and his staff escaped on the last train in a first-class compartment at the end of a luggage van. The carriage was hit by rifle fire, but the occupants escaped without injury to Durban, where on 4 November they embarked for Cape Town.

  Joe had been mentioned in despatches for his role at Elandslaagte, and his position on the staff was now regularized. He accompanied French and Haig to De Aar, where French was to take command of a force covering the Colesberg area. On 10, 11 and 15 December the British suffered severe defeats at Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso, in what would come to be called ‘Black Week’. Joe was highly critical of the performance of the British Army, writing to his mother: ‘The school in which our leaders have been taught is the worst in the world: fighting against Zulus, Dervishes, etc. seems to make them forget all about tactics and strategy.’3

  The disasters led to the overall command of the British troops in South Africa being transferred from Sir Redvers Buller to Lord Roberts. French, untarnished by the events of ‘Black Week’, had been engaged in a number of indecisive actions, but at least was active and was thus one of the few senior commanders retained by the new C-in-C. In the middle of January 1900, he sent Joe to see Roberts in Cape Town with despatches and maps to explain the position in his sector. Joe was also protesting, on French’s behalf, at the appointment of Lord Erroll, one of Roberts’s ‘Ring’, as his chief staff officer instead of Haig. The attempt failed and Erroll was appointed, but Haig stayed on as French’s guest. Erroll was far from competent, so Joe found himself doing much of the work. Haig was subsequently given a column to command and asked Joe to join him, but Joe refused to leave French.

  Roberts was now ready to begin his main offensive. On 14 February French, commanding the Cavalry Division, launched a wide turning movement to relieve Kimberley, taking the Boers by surprise, defeating the relatively modest opposition he encountered as a result and entering the town on the evening of the following day, in time for him and his staff to be entertained to dinner by Cecil Rhodes. A week later he began his advance on Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State, which fell on 13 March. Lack of supplies and a great deal of illness, largely typhoid, delayed a further advance, but it resumed in mid-May, with Johannesburg falling on 31 May and Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal, on 5 June. Three days later Jo
e had lunch in the latter with the Duke of Marlborough and his cousin, Winston Churchill, who had earlier escaped from the POW camp in the city, which he took Joe to inspect. Joe already knew Churchill, having met him in Ladysmith before his capture. The two men were to become good friends.

  Most people, not least Joe, now thought that the war was over; consequently, he booked a return passage on RMS Dunottar Castle in early July 1900, his fellow passengers including Churchill. He had done exceptionally well on French’s staff, distinguishing himself on a number of occasions, including one on which he had ridden through the night, accompanied only by a sergeant, to get an urgent message from French to Roberts. On another he found himself behind the Boer lines and was able to report to the troops facing them that the enemy was not nearly as strong as they had supposed. For these and his other services he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. He had also made some very influential friends, not only French, Haig, Hamilton and Edmund Allenby, but also Churchill and a young officer on Roberts’s staff, ‘Bendor’ Grosvenor,4 who had recently succeeded his grandfather as Duke of Westminster.

  The relief of Mafeking, Kimberley and Ladysmith had been accompanied in the United Kingdom by an outpouring of patriotic rejoicing, and those returning from the conflict were welcomed as heroes. Joe received an illuminated address from his neighbours in Nottinghamshire as the first volunteer from the Sherwood Rangers, whilst a shield, accompanied by an even more magnificent and illuminated parchment, was presented to him by the NCOs and other ranks of the Newark Troop of the regiment.