J.L. Granatstein

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

Canadian Military HistoryVolume 22 | Issue 2 Article 74-17-2015Successful Command Lieutenant-General RobertMoncel on Wartime LeadersJ.L. GranatsteinThis Feature is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian MilitaryHistory by an authorized administrator of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationJ.L. Granatstein (2015) "Successful Command Lieutenant-General Robert Moncel on Wartime Leaders," Canadian Military History:Vol. 22: Iss. 2, Article 7.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol22/iss2/777Abstract: Lieutenant-General Robert Moncel was the youngest brigadier in Canadian history and commanded the 4th Canadian Armoured Brigade in Northwest Europe from 1944-1945 with great success. This transcript of an interview conducted by J.L. Granatstein contains Moncel’s views on a wide range of issues related to the Canadian army of the Second World War, especially his candid views of many senior commanders including Guy Simonds, Robert Moncel was the youngest brigadier in Canadian history, promoted to that rank at age 27. Born in Montreal in 1917, he was a subaltern in the Victoria Rifles in Montreal when broke out, and he proceeded overseas in 1939 with the Royal Canadian Regiment. After several command and staff appointments, he led an armoured brigade with great success in 1944-45.After the war, Moncel served at Army Headquarters, in the US and UK, and was successively Quartermaster General and Vice Chief of the Defence Staff. He left the Canadian Forces in 1966 at the time of unification. He died in 2007.I met Moncel at a mess dinner at Camp Borden in 1960. A brash officer cadet, I asked him to get me access to the files of the Directorate of History at Army Headquarters for the B.A. thesis I was planning to write at the Royal Military College (RMC) on Canada and Peacekeeping. Amazingly, he did so, and I have been grateful to him ever since. When I interviewed him in 1991, three decades later, he was an impressive figure, intelligent, opinionated, precise. Those qualities, I think, show in his comments below. This interview has been lightly edited. The original transcript of the interview, one of the many I conducted for The Generals: The Canadian Army’s Senior Commanders in the Second World War, is in my papers at the York University Archives. A copy of the full set of interviews has been deposited at the Directorate of History and Heritage, National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa.* * * * *General Robert Moncel interview, Mahone Bay, NS, 6 October 1991We began by talking about the Permanent Force. He was no admirer, remarking on the “miserable performance” of many PFers and Royal Military College graduates in the war. They had everything going for them technically, including staff college, much more than the militia but a lot ended up after four years of war as captains or majors and as drunks. They were like the English, either very good or bloody awful. Of course, the Non-Permanent Active Militia (NPAM) wasn’t much different with the good and the bad. He apologized for sounding a snob, but those NPAM (and RMC) officers who had gone to private schools and had responsibility as prefects and who joined good – i.e. city – NPAM regiments did well. They knew what responsibility was, they could take and give orders, and they had good minds – Bruce Matthews, for example. The NPAM officers from rural regiments were much less good and in many cases outsiders had to be brought in to run them. The RCRs, he said, stocked large numbers of these. He mentioned the 12th Manitoba Dragoons that he was sent to whip into line. The commanding officer, J .S .  McMahon,  was  S imonds’ RMC classmate and the second-in-command was Gordon Churchill [later a Diefenbaker minister]. They had to be chopped, hadn’t a clue, no trades training, etc. The squadron leaders were drunk in the afternoon. They had to go, and he got new officers and an RSM from the RCRs, created new badges and shoulder flashes, and broke the regiment into Successful CommandLieutenant-General Robert Moncel on Wartime LeadersJ.L. Granatstein© Canadian Military History, Volume 22, Number 2, Spring 2013, pp.77-80. 1: Successful Command Lieutenant-General Robert Moncel on Wartime LeadersPublished by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 201578training squadrons and worked them hard for 5 months. No one told him how to do this.He agreed the NPAM generals at the onset of war were terrible, but there was no one else. Mind you, the PF had its problems too in 1939. He joined the RCRs where companies had a strength of 40 and had one light machine gun. The officers were drunks – he poured his company commander into bed every night. The RCR CO (Hodson) hated staff (staff college was “a forcing ground for shits”), and believed decorations or praise shouldn’t be offered. But they were soon weeded out. He said he had the RCR carrier platoon and a UK officer told him his men should be drawing trades pay. So he went to see Dan Spry, a lifelong friend, who was adjutant and asked to see the war establishment (WE). This shocked Spry and the CO because the WE was secret, they said. But eventually these regulars agreed that trades pay was permitted. Astonishing they’d not known this.He took the carrier platoon to France in June 1940 and after the retreat was told by a Brit officer to destroy them. He flatly refused and got them loaded on a ship as ballast after ordering his platoon sergeant to shoot the officer if necessary. They finally landed in Southampton to hear a band playing – for a tea dance. He was told to turn over his carriers to the general pool, refused, and was rescued by Boy Browning [General Sir Frederick Browning] whom he’d met on a course. When he got back to the RCR mess, two weeks after everyone else, the CO chased him out for looking scruffy.How then did the PF produce a Simonds? He was just a baby in 1939, a captain, but he loved the business. He was Moncel’s idol, mentor and the only one of the whole bunch with talent, brains, guts. After the war, the government, frightened of him, treated him badly; indeed, the government was mean to all the generals postwar.He met Simonds when he got sent to the first war staff course Simonds ran and he stood first in the course. Simonds was a lieutenant-colonel, dapper, smartly turned out, and knew what he was doing. He didn’t see him again for some time.Moncel’s posting after staff college was as GSO 3 at Corps (where he never saw McNaughton) which he hated and from which he was rescued by F.F. Worthington and made first a GSO 3 and then brigade major and finally GSO 1 of his division. Worthington was the kindest, nicest man, the most enthusiastic, and the most divorced from reality. He regularly proclaimed his brigade and eventually his division ready for action when it was nothing like it – no gunnery, no tradesmen. That was his weakness, an inability to see reality. Even though he understood armoured tactics and was the only one who believed in the tank, Moncel doubts he could have commanded in action: he’d have been at the front with his sword waving. He wanted to see blood on the tracks.He remembered an exercise Worthington’s brigade had to put on for Montgomery. Worthington wouldn’t make a plan or let Moncel do up one. When the day arrived, he told Moncel to simply say “how would you proceed, Brigadier?” and turn it over to him. He blew it, made Monty restless and angry, and Worthington left in a huff. To Moncel, this was typical of the PF. He said Worthington and McNaughton got Brigadier R.W. Moncel (right) with Colonel J.L. Ralston, the Canadian minister of national defence, October 1944.2Canadian Military History, Vol. 22 [2015], Iss. 2, Art. 7http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol22/iss2/779on well because both liked gadgetry. McNaughton was fascinated by Worthington’s workshop.He remembered E.W. Sansom who was incompetent, and he recalled that Ernie read a book describing a desert corps commander who travelled with a truck full of cable so he could unroll the line and stay in contact wherever he was. Sansom decided to try this in the UK, got Fin Clark, his chief signals officer, to put the Corps’ whole cable reserve on a truck and it was a disaster. In the UK the line got cut everywhere. The problem with him, as corps commander, was that he gave no direction. He told Moncel to produce a plan for a big exercise, and he did so; Sansom flipped through it and said it looked great. That was all. But he was fun in the mess and it was a party every night. Moncel said that he was asked to get Sansom drunk so he could be fired on those grounds. He refused. But Sansom was ultimately sacked anyhow. He and McNaughton lived in another world.When Simonds took over the Corps things changed. Moncel was GSO l and Simonds gave him a plan he’d written out in long hand for distribution. Moncel changed a few things and sent it out. When Simonds saw this he called him and reamed him out: “Don’t you ever do that again.” He had the palest blue eyes and looked like a hawk. He gave direction; he knew what he wanted, and the UK generals respected him which they didn’t other Canadians.Simonds had come from Italy to take the Corps and Moncel was the junior member in A Mess. Each morning at breakfast another staff officer was gone until finally only Moncel was left. Simonds smiled and said “you’re staying.” He brought in his own people from Italy and he was right to can the Corps staff he did. His people performed well.He was great to work for. He knew what he wanted and he had confidence in his people to leave them alone to do their job. He knew they’d break their neck to carry out his wishes. Many were frightened of him, but not Moncel. He travelled with him at the front, saw him in all kinds of circumstances and they became good friends.Simonds didn’t like Charles Foulkes. When his 2nd Division was to stage an attack, Simonds was just behind division HQ waiting for the scheduled attack to go in at 0600 hours. Simonds had risen at 0500 hours. The barrage was late (0620 hours) and Simonds said “I’m going over to relieve the Division commander.” Moncel urged delay, it wouldn’t help the battle. Simonds looked at him with his hawklike glare and agreed: “you owe me one.” The battle was a disaster, like everything Foulkes touched. Foulkes’ rise was, to Moncel, inexplicable. His staff was poor – he attracted poor officers. He said once Foulkes was cut off and one of Moncel’s officers (when he had 4th Armoured Brigade) rescued him. Moncel couldn’t forgive the officer for that.Moncel talked about courage in battle. He said when he took over his brigade he visited his artillery regiment, commanded by an RMC grad. The second-in-command was at the gun lines and the CO was back with the transport. This happened again and finally the second-in-command said the CO wouldn’t come forward. Moncel went to see him, pleaded, failed, and had to can him. The CO had run a good regiment in the UK, but he couldn’t stand up to Brigadier R.W. Moncel, commander of 4th Canadian Armoured Brigade, Tillburg, Netherlands, 19 March 1945.3: Successful Command Lieutenant-General Robert Moncel on Wartime LeadersPublished by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 201580action. Why? No way of predicting who does well and who doesn’t. You were often wrong. Who’d have expected Fred Tilston or David Currie to get VCs?He said that when George Kitching was canned it was because he’d been let down by his brigadiers. Brigadier E.L. Booth was brave and experienced but he put his HQ in three tanks during Operation Totalize and when he was killed there was no communication to 4th Division HQ. Kitching couldn’t find out what was up, and the attack ground to a halt. The key was, as Simonds said, to have HQ in a safe place with good communications; then the CO could go forward while his HQ stayed in touch. It took five days before Moncel learned he was to take over Booth’s brigade.He said he’d once before been told he was to be promoted. Just before D-Day, Brigadier R.A. Wyman blabbed the plans and Monty was furious and wanted him canned. Moncel was tapped for the job, but Simonds changed his mind, saying it was wrong to change commanders then. Wyman took the brigade in and got wounded before he could be relieved.Totalize was Simonds’ plan. Moncel didn’t think he had asked too much of green regiments. It would have worked as the troops (Ned Amy, he mentioned) got on their objectives but then no orders came through. The brigadiers were inexperienced. Possibly Simonds ought to have taken that into account.Simonds had charisma and the troops saw it. Perhaps he aped Monty too much with his black beret, and that helped make some hate him. The Brits put up with idiosyncrasy better than Canadians. Still he was charming and great fun, a challenge at all times. He recalled after the war at a Cabinet Defence Committee, Simonds was trying to get the Canadian Guards authorized and one minister queried this. Simonds said, “when the mobs storm Parliament Hill, you will be glad to have two loyal battalions.”H e  t a l k e d  a b o u t  h o w  a commander can’t believe a CO who says the men are tired. Too often it was the commander who was tired. He recalled Simonds being told troops were “pinned to the ground” and on going forward found the men lying in the sun. He fired all the commanders. They ought to have been going forward to see things themselves. A brigadier should go down to company level to see what was up. Moreover, good brigadiers had gone to staff college and had a sense of inter-arm cooperation and of the resources available. He recalled sitting in on a brigadier’s Orders Group when, on being offered extra artillery and armour support, the brigadier refused. The attack was a disaster and 200 died. Officers got tired and stopped caring. They ought to have been relieved – with honour.The problem wasn’t the men – they were superb. It was the officers. Still by the end of the war the First Canadian Army was superb. It could move instantly, it was magnificent, and it had taken five years to build it. His brigade was superb, tough and efficient. A bad brigadier could lose in a day what Moncel’s brigade lost in all of Northwest Europe – 350 killed. The Germans, he added, were a ragtag lot, though their good units were superb. And the Canadians had such equipment in such quantity it was extravagant to the point of immorality.He wasn’t a great admirer of Chris Vokes who ended the war as his division commander (though they had riotous times postwar and were friends). He knew nil about armour and wasn’t a happy camper in Northwest Europe. He only rarely came to see Moncel’s brigade (2-3 times) and left him on his own. This was because the orders came from Corps and the division commanders had little to do. He did recall one day Vokes came to his HQ when they were being shelled and Vokes jumped into a trench with his tinhat on, while Moncel’s officers walked around. One kept saluting Vokes every time he passed his trench. (Moncel had laid down that staff officers wore caps, not tin hats. He remembered being in a doorway with Harry Foster at Caen under fire when two privates jumped in for shelter. “You’re a general?” “Yes.” “You can do what you want?” “Yes.” “Well, if I was a general I’d get the hell out of here.”) Vokes ran his occupation force like a warlord.He saw little of Harry Crerar. He was a gent with a lovely wife, who liked to have RMC boys around (he mentioned Bill Anderson especially, saying it was terrible that he wasn’t allowed to command a unit in action but was kept at Army HQ.)George Pearkes, he said, was like Worthington who’d have had his sword in hand in the attack. He actually travelled with a trumpeter and once introduced Mrs. Churchill as Mrs. Attlee. His brains had been blown out in World War I.Dan Spry, he said, recovered from being canned and did well. Rod Keller left him cold – like Vokes too much blood and guts.To him Ottawa wasn’t the enemy; Canadian Military HQ was, though this ceased once they got into action.He also said that he had no sense that reinforcements were short. Not in armoured regiments and not in his motorized infantry.J.L. Granatstein has received the Order of Canada and the Pierre Berton Award, among other distinctions. He is the former director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum.4Canadian Military History, Vol. 22 [2015], Iss. 2, Art. 7http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol22/iss2/7

Successful Command Lieutenant-General Robert Moncel on Wartime Leaders

Scholars Commons

Canadian Military History
Volume 22 | Issue 2 Article 7
4-17-2015
Successful Command Lieutenant-General Robert
Moncel on Wartime Leaders
J.L. Granatstein
This Feature is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military
History by an authorized administrator of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation
J.L. Granatstein (2015) "Successful Command Lieutenant-General Robert Moncel on Wartime Leaders," Canadian Military History:
Vol. 22: Iss. 2, Article 7.
Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol22/iss2/7
77
Abstract: Lieutenant-General Robert 
Moncel was the youngest brigadier 
in Canadian history and commanded 
the 4th Canadian Armoured Brigade 
in Northwest Europe from 1944-1945 
with great success. This transcript 
of an interview conducted by J.L. 
Granatstein contains Moncel’s views 
on a wide range of issues related to 
the Canadian army of the Second 
World War, especially his candid views 
of many senior commanders including 
Guy Simonds, 
Robert Moncel was the youngest brigadier in Canadian history, 
promoted to that rank at age 27. 
Born in Montreal in 1917, he was a 
subaltern in the Victoria Rifles in 
Montreal when broke out, and he 
proceeded overseas in 1939 with 
the Royal Canadian Regiment. 
After several command and staff 
appointments, he led an armoured 
brigade with great success in 1944-45.
After the war, Moncel served 
at Army Headquarters, in the US 
and UK, and was successively 
Quartermaster General and Vice 
Chief of the Defence Staff. He left the 
Canadian Forces in 1966 at the time of 
unification. He died in 2007.
I met Moncel at a mess dinner 
at Camp Borden in 1960. A brash 
officer cadet, I asked him to get me 
access to the files of the Directorate 
of History at Army Headquarters 
for the B.A. thesis I was planning to 
write at the Royal Military College 
(RMC) on Canada and Peacekeeping. 
Amazingly, he did so, and I have 
been grateful to him ever since. When 
I interviewed him in 1991, three 
decades later, he was an impressive 
figure, intelligent, opinionated, 
precise. Those qualities, I think, show 
in his comments below.
 This interview has been lightly 
edited. The original transcript of 
the interview, one of the many I 
conducted for The Generals: The 
Canadian Army’s Senior Commanders in 
the Second World War, is in my papers 
at the York University Archives. A 
copy of the full set of interviews has 
been deposited at the Directorate 
of History and Heritage, National 
Defence Headquarters in Ottawa.
* * * * *
General Robert Moncel 
interview, Mahone Bay, NS, 
6 October 1991
We began by talking about the Permanent Force. He was no 
admirer, remarking on the “miserable 
performance” of many PFers and 
Royal Military College graduates 
in the war. They had everything 
going for them technically, including 
staff college, much more than the 
militia but a lot ended up after four 
years of war as captains or majors 
and as drunks. They were like the 
English, either very good or bloody 
awful. Of course, the Non-Permanent 
Active Militia (NPAM) wasn’t much 
different with the good and the bad. 
He apologized for sounding a snob, 
but those NPAM (and RMC) officers 
who had gone to private schools and 
had responsibility as prefects and 
who joined good – i.e. city – NPAM 
regiments did well. They knew 
what responsibility was, they could 
take and give orders, and they had 
good minds – Bruce Matthews, for 
example. The NPAM officers from 
rural regiments were much less good 
and in many cases outsiders had to be 
brought in to run them. The RCRs, he 
said, stocked large numbers of these. 
He mentioned the 12th Manitoba 
Dragoons that he was sent to whip 
into line. The commanding officer, 
J .S .  McMahon,  was  S imonds’ 
RMC classmate and the second-in-
command was Gordon Churchill 
[later a Diefenbaker minister]. They 
had to be chopped, hadn’t a clue, no 
trades training, etc. The squadron 
leaders were drunk in the afternoon. 
They had to go, and he got new 
officers and an RSM from the RCRs, 
created new badges and shoulder 
flashes, and broke the regiment into 
Successful Command
Lieutenant-General Robert Moncel on Wartime Leaders
J.L. Granatstein
© Canadian Military History, Volume 22, Number 2, Spring 2013, pp.77-80. 1
: Successful Command Lieutenant-General Robert Moncel on Wartime Leaders
Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015
78
training squadrons and worked them 
hard for 5 months. No one told him 
how to do this.
He agreed the NPAM generals 
at the onset of war were terrible, but 
there was no one else. Mind you, the 
PF had its problems too in 1939. He 
joined the RCRs where companies 
had a strength of 40 and had one 
light machine gun. The officers were 
drunks – he poured his company 
commander into bed every night. 
The RCR CO (Hodson) hated staff 
(staff college was “a forcing ground 
for shits”), and believed decorations 
or praise shouldn’t be offered. But 
they were soon weeded out. He said 
he had the RCR carrier platoon and 
a UK officer told him his men should 
be drawing trades pay. So he went to 
see Dan Spry, a lifelong friend, who 
was adjutant and asked to see the war 
establishment (WE). This shocked 
Spry and the CO because the WE was 
secret, they said. But eventually these 
regulars agreed that trades pay was 
permitted. Astonishing they’d not 
known this.
He took the carrier platoon to 
France in June 1940 and after the 
retreat was told by a Brit officer to 
destroy them. He flatly refused and 
got them loaded on a ship as ballast 
after ordering his platoon sergeant 
to shoot the officer if necessary. They 
finally landed in Southampton to 
hear a band playing – for a tea dance. 
He was told to turn over his carriers 
to the general pool, refused, and was 
rescued by Boy Browning [General 
Sir Frederick Browning] whom he’d 
met on a course. When he got back 
to the RCR mess, two weeks after 
everyone else, the CO chased him out 
for looking scruffy.
How then did the PF produce a 
Simonds? He was just a baby in 1939, 
a captain, but he loved the business. 
He was Moncel’s idol, mentor and 
the only one of the whole bunch 
with talent, brains, guts. After the 
war, the government, frightened 
of him, treated him badly; indeed, 
the government was mean to all the 
generals postwar.
He met Simonds when he got 
sent to the first war staff course 
Simonds ran and he stood first in the 
course. Simonds was a lieutenant-
colonel, dapper, smartly turned out, 
and knew what he was doing. He 
didn’t see him again for some time.
Moncel’s posting after staff 
college was as GSO 3 at Corps (where 
he never saw McNaughton) which he 
hated and from which he was rescued 
by F.F. Worthington and made first 
a GSO 3 and then brigade major 
and finally GSO 1 of his division. 
Worthington was the kindest, nicest 
man, the most enthusiastic, and 
the most divorced from reality. He 
regularly proclaimed his brigade 
and eventually his division ready 
for action when it was nothing like 
it – no gunnery, no tradesmen. That 
was his weakness, an inability to see 
reality. Even though he understood 
armoured tactics and was the only 
one who believed in the tank, Moncel 
doubts he could have commanded 
in action: he’d have been at the front 
with his sword waving. He wanted 
to see blood on the tracks.
He remembered an exercise 
Worthington’s brigade had to put 
on for Montgomery. Worthington 
wouldn’t make a plan or let Moncel 
do up one. When the day arrived, 
he told Moncel to simply say “how 
would you proceed, Brigadier?” 
and turn it over to him. He blew it, 
made Monty restless and angry, and 
Worthington left in a huff. To Moncel, 
this was typical of the PF. He said 
Worthington and McNaughton got 
Brigadier R.W. Moncel (right) with 
Colonel J.L. Ralston, the Canadian 
minister of national defence, October 
1944.
2
Canadian Military History, Vol. 22 [2015], Iss. 2, Art. 7
http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol22/iss2/7
79
on well because both liked gadgetry. 
McNaughton was fascinated by 
Worthington’s workshop.
He remembered E.W. Sansom 
who was incompetent, and he 
recalled that Ernie read a book 
describing a desert corps commander 
who travelled with a truck full of 
cable so he could unroll the line and 
stay in contact wherever he was. 
Sansom decided to try this in the UK, 
got Fin Clark, his chief signals officer, 
to put the Corps’ whole cable reserve 
on a truck and it was a disaster. In 
the UK the line got cut everywhere. 
The problem with him, as corps 
commander, was that he gave no 
direction. He told Moncel to produce 
a plan for a big exercise, and he did 
so; Sansom flipped through it and 
said it looked great. That was all. But 
he was fun in the mess and it was a 
party every night. Moncel said that he 
was asked to get Sansom drunk so he 
could be fired on those grounds. He 
refused. But Sansom was ultimately 
sacked anyhow. He and McNaughton 
lived in another world.
When Simonds took over the 
Corps things changed. Moncel was 
GSO l and Simonds gave him a plan 
he’d written out in long hand for 
distribution. Moncel changed a few 
things and sent it out. When Simonds 
saw this he called him and reamed 
him out: “Don’t you ever do that 
again.” He had the palest blue eyes 
and looked like a hawk. He gave 
direction; he knew what he wanted, 
and the UK generals respected him 
which they didn’t other Canadians.
Simonds had come from Italy 
to take the Corps and Moncel was 
the junior member in A Mess. Each 
morning at breakfast another staff 
officer was gone until finally only 
Moncel was left. Simonds smiled and 
said “you’re staying.” He brought in 
his own people from Italy and he was 
right to can the Corps staff he did. His 
people performed well.
He was great to work for. He 
knew what he wanted and he had 
confidence in his people to leave 
them alone to do their job. He knew 
they’d break their neck to carry out 
his wishes. Many were frightened of 
him, but not Moncel. He travelled 
with him at the front, saw him in 
all kinds of circumstances and they 
became good friends.
Simonds didn’t like Charles 
Foulkes. When his 2nd Division 
was to stage an attack, Simonds was 
just behind division HQ waiting 
for the scheduled attack to go in at 
0600 hours. Simonds had risen at 
0500 hours. The barrage was late 
(0620 hours) and Simonds said “I’m 
going over to relieve the Division 
commander.” Moncel urged delay, 
it wouldn’t help the battle. Simonds 
looked at him with his hawklike glare 
and agreed: “you owe me one.” The 
battle was a disaster, like everything 
Foulkes touched. Foulkes’ rise was, 
to Moncel, inexplicable. His staff was 
poor – he attracted poor officers. He 
said once Foulkes was cut off and 
one of Moncel’s officers (when he 
had 4th Armoured Brigade) rescued 
him. Moncel couldn’t forgive the 
officer for that.
Moncel talked about courage in 
battle. He said when he took over 
his brigade he visited his artillery 
regiment, commanded by an RMC 
grad. The second-in-command was 
at the gun lines and the CO was back 
with the transport. This happened 
again and finally the second-in-
command said the CO wouldn’t come 
forward. Moncel went to see him, 
pleaded, failed, and had to can him. 
The CO had run a good regiment in 
the UK, but he couldn’t stand up to 
Brigadier R.W. Moncel, commander 
of 4th Canadian Armoured Brigade, 
Tillburg, Netherlands, 19 March 1945.
3
: Successful Command Lieutenant-General Robert Moncel on Wartime Leaders
Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015
80
action. Why? No way of predicting 
who does well and who doesn’t. 
You were often wrong. Who’d have 
expected Fred Tilston or David 
Currie to get VCs?
He said that when George 
Kitching was canned it was because 
he’d been let down by his brigadiers. 
Brigadier E.L. Booth was brave and 
experienced but he put his HQ in 
three tanks during Operation Totalize 
and when he was killed there was no 
communication to 4th Division HQ. 
Kitching couldn’t find out what was 
up, and the attack ground to a halt. 
The key was, as Simonds said, to 
have HQ in a safe place with good 
communications; then the CO could 
go forward while his HQ stayed in 
touch. It took five days before Moncel 
learned he was to take over Booth’s 
brigade.
He said he’d once before been 
told he was to be promoted. Just 
before D-Day, Brigadier R.A. Wyman 
blabbed the plans and Monty was 
furious and wanted him canned. 
Moncel was tapped for the job, but 
Simonds changed his mind, saying 
it was wrong to change commanders 
then. Wyman took the brigade in 
and got wounded before he could 
be relieved.
Totalize was Simonds’ plan. 
Moncel didn’t think he had asked 
too much of green regiments. It 
would have worked as the troops 
(Ned Amy, he mentioned) got on 
their objectives but then no orders 
came through. The brigadiers were 
inexperienced. Possibly Simonds 
ought to have taken that into account.
Simonds had charisma and the 
troops saw it. Perhaps he aped Monty 
too much with his black beret, and 
that helped make some hate him. The 
Brits put up with idiosyncrasy better 
than Canadians. Still he was charming 
and great fun, a challenge at all times. 
He recalled after the war at a Cabinet 
Defence Committee, Simonds was 
trying to get the Canadian Guards 
authorized and one minister queried 
this. Simonds said, “when the mobs 
storm Parliament Hill, you will be 
glad to have two loyal battalions.”
H e  t a l k e d  a b o u t  h o w  a 
commander can’t believe a CO who 
says the men are tired. Too often it 
was the commander who was tired. 
He recalled Simonds being told 
troops were “pinned to the ground” 
and on going forward found the 
men lying in the sun. He fired all the 
commanders. They ought to have 
been going forward to see things 
themselves. A brigadier should go 
down to company level to see what 
was up. Moreover, good brigadiers 
had gone to staff college and had a 
sense of inter-arm cooperation and 
of the resources available. He recalled 
sitting in on a brigadier’s Orders 
Group when, on being offered extra 
artillery and armour support, the 
brigadier refused. The attack was a 
disaster and 200 died. Officers got 
tired and stopped caring. They ought 
to have been relieved – with honour.
The problem wasn’t the men – 
they were superb. It was the officers. 
Still by the end of the war the First 
Canadian Army was superb. It could 
move instantly, it was magnificent, 
and it had taken five years to build 
it. His brigade was superb, tough 
and efficient. A bad brigadier could 
lose in a day what Moncel’s brigade 
lost in all of Northwest Europe – 350 
killed. The Germans, he added, were 
a ragtag lot, though their good units 
were superb. And the Canadians 
had such equipment in such quantity 
it was extravagant to the point of 
immorality.
He wasn’t a great admirer of 
Chris Vokes who ended the war as 
his division commander (though 
they had riotous times postwar and 
were friends). He knew nil about 
armour and wasn’t a happy camper 
in Northwest Europe. He only rarely 
came to see Moncel’s brigade (2-3 
times) and left him on his own. This 
was because the orders came from 
Corps and the division commanders 
had little to do. He did recall one 
day Vokes came to his HQ when 
they were being shelled and Vokes 
jumped into a trench with his tinhat 
on, while Moncel’s officers walked 
around. One kept saluting Vokes 
every time he passed his trench. 
(Moncel had laid down that staff 
officers wore caps, not tin hats. He 
remembered being in a doorway with 
Harry Foster at Caen under fire when 
two privates jumped in for shelter. 
“You’re a general?” “Yes.” “You can 
do what you want?” “Yes.” “Well, 
if I was a general I’d get the hell out 
of here.”) Vokes ran his occupation 
force like a warlord.
He saw little of Harry Crerar. He 
was a gent with a lovely wife, who 
liked to have RMC boys around (he 
mentioned Bill Anderson especially, 
saying it was terrible that he wasn’t 
allowed to command a unit in action 
but was kept at Army HQ.)
George Pearkes, he said, was 
like Worthington who’d have had 
his sword in hand in the attack. He 
actually travelled with a trumpeter 
and once introduced Mrs. Churchill 
as Mrs. Attlee. His brains had been 
blown out in World War I.
Dan Spry, he said, recovered 
from being canned and did well. Rod 
Keller left him cold – like Vokes too 
much blood and guts.
To him Ottawa wasn’t the enemy; 
Canadian Military HQ was, though 
this ceased once they got into action.
He also said that he had no sense 
that reinforcements were short. Not 
in armoured regiments and not in his 
motorized infantry.
J.L. Granatstein has received the Order 
of Canada and the Pierre Berton Award, 
among other distinctions. He is the former 
director and CEO of the Canadian War 
Museum.
4
Canadian Military History, Vol. 22 [2015], Iss. 2, Art. 7
http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol22/iss2/7


https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1690&amp;context=cmh

Successful Command Lieutenant-General Robert Moncel on Wartime Leaders

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