Guy Simonds - WikiHQ

Lieutenant-General Guy Granville Simonds, (April 23, 1903 – May 15, 1974) was a senior Canadian Army officer who served with distinction during World War II. Acknowledged by many military historians and senior commanders, among them Sir Max Hastings and Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, as one of the best Canadian generals of the war, Simonds, after serving the first few years of the Second World War mainly as a staff officer, commanded the 1st Canadian Infantry Division with distinction in Sicily and Italy from July 1943 until January 1944, and later II Canadian Corps during the Battle of Normandy from June−August 1944 and throughout the subsequent campaign in Western Europe from 1944, towards the end of which he temporarily commanded the First Canadian Army during the Battle of the Scheldt, until victory in Europe Day in May 1945. The historian J. L. Granatstein states about Simonds: "No Canadian commander rose higher and faster in the Second World War, and none did as well in action. Simonds owed his success wholly to his own abilities and efforts—and those of the men who served under him".

After the end of the war, he went to the Imperial Defence College (IDC) in London, initially as a student and later as an instructor, before returning to Canada to command the National Defence College. In 1951, at the age of just 48, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff (CGS), the head of the Canadian Army, a post he held for four years, including during the Korean War, before retiring in 1955.

Family background

Guy was born in Ixworth, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England on April 24, 1903.

Simonds came from a military family: his great-grandfather had been in the army of the Honourable East India Company, his grandfather had been a major-general in the British Indian Army and his father an officer in the British Army's Royal Regiment of Artillery. The Simonds family was related to Ivor Maxse and Lord Milner. On his maternal side, his grandfather William Easton was a wealthy Virginian horse breeder, who had moved to England, renting Ixworth Abbey. Eleanor "Nellie" Easton, his mother, was one of five daughters, four of whom married army officers.

His father Cecil, a major, resigned from the British Army in fall 1911 (when Guy was 8) and moved his family to British Columbia, working as a surveyor for a railway. Cecil's expectations of having his own survey company were frustrated by the requirement to pass local professional examinations. Re-joining the army at the start of World War I, Cecil was wounded in 1918, and demobilized in 1919 with the rank of colonel. The family spent the war in a rented house in Victoria. Guy's mother sold family possessions to make ends meet. Guy had to quit school for two years at age fourteen to help support the family. Graham speculates that the period of fatherlessness made him a "loner" and self-reliant.

Simonds had three siblings, Cicely, Peter and Eric. Eric (anecdotally an excellent rifle shot, having won prizes at Bisley) became a test pilot, but died in an air accident off Felixstowe in July 1937 in a Miles Magister while serving with the A&AEE in England. Cicely worked as a secretary in the Admiralty during the war. She and her daughter were killed by a V-1 (flying bomb) attack in June 1944, during World War II.

Education and early military career

Simonds attended Collegiate School in Victoria and then Ashbury College in Ottawa beginning in 1919. The college's dining hall is named after him.

He studied at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario between 1921 and 1925, cadet number 1596. Simonds' class was the last to be selected from nationwide exams (Simonds having been placed second) and the first after the recently ended First World War to enter a four-year course. At graduation he was awarded the Sword of Honour, judged the best "all rounder", placed second academically, and was generally considered the best horseman in the class.

He joined the Canadian Militia and was commissioned in 1925 as a second lieutenant into the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, serving first with B Battery of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery in Kingston, then C Battery in Winnipeg. In September 1932 (just weeks after his wedding) with the rank of brevet captain, he attended the Long Gunnery Staff Course in England.

Second World War

United Kingdom 1939−1943

On September 10, 1939 Canada declared war on Nazi Germany and officially entered the Second World War. Almost immediately Simonds received orders to report to Ottawa where he was appointed to the newly raised 1st Canadian Infantry Division, as its General Staff Officer Grade 2 (GSO2). His first duties as GSO2 were to supervise the operations and training of the division, as well as for its organization and equipment. Together with most of the rest of the division, Simonds went overseas to the United Kingdom in December 1939.

There his job was to consume him in the weeks and months ahead, so much so that he scarcely wrote to his wife, Kay. Colonel Ernest William Sansom, a fellow officer in the 1st Division, had heard about Kay's misgivings about never hearing from her husband, wrote to his wife, stating that he was not surprised, and claimed that Simonds, "is working very hard and doing an excellent job as GSO II."

Simonds's job brought him into frequent contact with the 1st Division's General Officer Commanding (GOC), "Andy" McNaughton, a fellow gunner officer who had previously been Chief of the General Staff (CGS). Simonds was with the GOC on 16 May 1940, six days after the Battle of France began, when McNaughton was summoned to a conference by General Sir Edmund Ironside, the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), about the situation in France, which was not good and seemed to be deteriorating rapidly. The briefing stated the situation as being critical but not completely hopeless, and urged commanders to teach bayonet fighting to instil in their men a fighting spirit. The briefing also urged that German paratroopers were not to be made prisoners of war.

On July 20, 1940, after being promoted to lieutenant colonel, he went on to be commanding officer of the 1st Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, his first command since leaving C Battery.

In November 1940 he was appointed commandant of the Canadian Junior War Staff Course (an intensive 14-week program that compressed one year of the Camberly course), intended to fill the shortage of trained staff officers. having risen from major to major-general in three-and-a-half years–faster than any other officer in the Canadian Army. A senior officer had described Simonds to Colonel James Ralston, the Defence Minister, as, "a most outstanding officer but not a leader of the type that will secure the devotion of his followers", although he, "has undoubted ability and will fight his Division and make few mistakes." Simonds's new division had sustained extremely heavy casualties the year before at Dieppe under its previous commander, Major-General John Hamilton Roberts, and was still recovering from its losses.

Just nine days later, however, he was suddenly transferred to the 1st Canadian Infantry Division as its GOC, replacing Major-General Salmon, who had been killed in a plane crash earlier that day over Devon while planning for Operation Husky, codename for the Allied invasion of Sicily. Desmond Morton noted that Simonds had proven himself to Montgomery in Sicily as "...an able field commander. No other Canadian would ever quite meet Monty's standards." At Agira and Regalbuto, Simonds won "costly, difficult battles" over the Wehrmacht who used the mountainous terrain of Sicily to their advantage. The victories were not cheap, as the 1st Division had suffered 2,310 casualties in Sicily, losing 562 men killed in action or dying of their wounds, with the rest being wounded or taken prisoner.

Italy 1943−1944

The campaign in Sicily was over by mid-August and, after a brief rest, on September 3, 1943, Simonds and the 1st Canadian Division, now serving alongside the British 5th Infantry Division as part of British XIII Corps, commanded by Lieutenant-General Miles Dempsey (whom Simonds was to form a high opinion of), landed on the mainland of Italy in Operation Baytown, part of the Allied invasion of Italy. Meeting light resistance, the division suffered only nine casualties on the first day. Falling ill on September 22, he was replaced as commander of the 1st Canadian Division by Brigadier Christopher Vokes, the former commander of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade.

thumb|left|Major-General Simonds, pictured in Italy, 1943

Subsequently, he replaced Major-General Charles Stein as GOC of the recently arrived 5th Canadian (Armoured) Division when it arrived on the Italian Front in November 1943. Simonds viewed this, along with the arrival of Lieutenant-General Harry Crerar and I Canadian Corps, as something of a comedown, although this was not the intent of CMHQ. Montgomery had wanted Simonds to command an armoured division to give him experience with commanding tanks, though the mountainous terrain of Italy was hardly the best place.

Simonds was furious when he learned that, to save shipping, his new division would have to take old equipment from the veteran British 7th Armoured Division (famous in the Western Desert as the "Desert Rats"). Crerar rejected an idea to use 3,350 brand-new I Corps headquarters vehicles to equip the 5th Canadian Armoured Division. The division would not be fully equipped until the end of January 1944.

His initial meeting with Crerar went poorly (possibly strained by Simonds' illness), and relations further deteriorated when Simonds ejected an officer sent by Crerar to measure his headquarters caravan. Crerar was fascinated by Simonds's caravan, and sent an officer to take its measurements without informing Simonds, who expelled the officer when he discovered him in his caravan. Crerar had become jealous of Simonds, who had enjoyed more battlefield success and media attention as the general officer commanding (GOC) of 1st Infantry Division and then as 5th Armour ed Division in Italy than he had. Crerar took the matter to General Montgomery, the Eighth Army commander, but found little support. On December 11, 1943 Crerar sent a memo to Montgomery declaring he had "serious cause to doubt...the suitability of Simonds for higher command", going on to write that he believed that Simonds was mentally ill, saying that Simonds had "always been high strung...with a tendency to be introspective rather than objective, when faced with acute problems". Montgomery wrote back that he had the "highest opinion of Simonds" and rejected Crerar's claims that he was mentally ill. However, Crerar discussed the event with army psychiatrists, the temporary commander of the Canadian First Army in England, Lieutenant-General Kenneth Stuart, and post-war pushed for Charles Foulkes to be selected as Chief of the General Staff (CGS) over Simonds.

Simonds's only battle in command of 5th Division was the so-called "Arielli Show", an offensive launched on January 17, 1944 against the German 1st Parachute Division's strong-points southeast of the Arielli River in central Italy.

Northwest Europe 1944−1945

thumb|left|General Montgomery (eighth from left) talking with Lieutenant-General Simonds (ninth from left) and other senior officers of II Canadian Corps at Corps Headquarters in the Normandy bridgehead, France, July 20, 1944

In January 1944 he was recalled to the United Kingdom and, after being promoted to lieutenant-general on January 6, In his instructions to his officers in February 1944, Simonds noted that the Wehrmacht always fought its defensive battles the same way; namely a thinly manned series of outposts, behind which were a series of strongly held dug-in positions that could bring down interlocking machine gun and mortar fire. Simonds further noted the Wehrmacht would always launch aggressive counter-attacks in face of an Allied attack, stating: <blockquote>...success of the offensive battle hinges on the defeat of the German counter-attacks, with sufficient of our own reserves in hand to launch a new phase as soon as the enemy strength has spent itself. The defeat of these counter-attacks must form part of the original plan of attack which must include arrangements for artillery support and forward moves of infantry-supporting weapons—including tanks—on the objective. However, Simonds was a favorite of Montgomery, who viewed Simonds as the most talented Canadian general in the entire war, and Montgomery blocked Crerar's attempts to send Simonds back to Canada.

thumb|left|Brigadier J. A. W. Bennett is made a Commander of the British Empire by King [[George VI at the headquarters of the First Canadian Army in Belgium, October 1944. Lieutenant-General Simonds, wearing a black beret and having just been made a Companion of the Order of the Bath, stands a short distance away, and behind him is Field Marshal Montgomery.]]

Once II Corps was activated, Simonds would direct four major attacks during the Battle of Normandy in five weeks: Operations Atlantic (the Canadian part of Operation Goodwood), Spring, Totalize and Tractable. After Operation Spring, Simonds tried to sack Foulkes as commander of 2nd Canadian Division, writing that Foulkes "did not [show] the right qualities to command 2nd Division", but was blocked by Crerar, who kept Foulkes on to nettle Simonds. Simonds has often been criticized for his reliance on heavy bombers to "blast" open a way for Operation Totalize, but the Canadian historian Jody Perrun argued that the marked inferiority of the Sherman tanks to the Panther and Tiger tanks of the Germans meant that Simonds had no other choice, but to use air power to even the odds given that both the Panthers and Tigers had more powerful guns and heavier armour than the Shermans. Perrun has charged too many historians have taken at face value the disparaging remarks about Simonds's command by SS-Brigadeführer Kurt "Panzer" Meyer, the commander of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, who spoke as if the Sherman tanks were the equal of the Tiger and Panther tanks, and charged that the Canadians were insufficiently aggressive in armour ed operations and too reliant upon air support. A principal problem for Simonds was that his tank crews were loath to face the Panthers and Tigers on open ground given their guns could not knock either type of tank except at very close range while the guns of the Panthers and Tigers could knock a Sherman at long range. Perrun argued that Meyer's claims that Simonds lacked aggression failed to take into account the weaknesses of the Sherman tanks, and Simonds designed his operations with the aim of counter-acting the flaws of the Shermans by providing for air and artillery support to even the odds.

right|thumb|From left to right: [[Christopher Vokes, Harry Crerar, Sir Bernard Montgomery, Brian Horrocks (both British Army), Guy Simonds, Daniel Spry and Bruce Mathews, all pictured here in February 1945 during Operation Veritable.]]

thumb|[[Field marshal (United Kingdom)|Field Marshal Montgomery with his staff, army, corps and division commanders at Walbeck, Germany, March 22, 1945. Standing in the third row, seventh from the left, is Lieutenant General Simonds.]]

thumb|right|Senior commanders of the First Canadian Army, May 1945. Seated from the left: [[Stanisław Maczek (Polish Army), Guy Simonds, Harry Crerar, Charles Foulkes, Bert Hoffmeister. Standing from the left:

Ralph Keefler, Bruce Matthews, Harry Foster, Robert Moncel (standing in for Chris Vokes), Stuart Rawlins (British Army).]]

For Totalize (beginning August 7, 1944), which involved a night attack, numerous navigation aids were devised, along with heavy bomber support. Having learned from Operation Spring, Simonds devised the "Kangaroo", an early armoured personnel carrier converted from non-operational armoured vehicles "defrocked Priests". Granatstein characterizes the plan as "brilliant if too complicated", in that it did not account for the inexperience of the troops. The two commanders of the armour ed divisions tasked with leading the assault, George Kitching and Stanisław Maczek both objected to Simonds's plans for a "mailed fist" assault on narrow fronts as allowing the Germans to concentrate their forces for counter-attack, but Simonds argued the planned heavy bombing attack by US bombers would disorganize the Germans enough to allow a breakthrough. As Maczek's English was very poor and Simonds spoke no Polish, the two generals spoke in French, in which Maczek was fluent. Simonds insisted that his French was not that good and so Kitching translated for him. While the offensive was derailed by the US "friendly fire", the aggressive Meyer took advantage of the pause to stop the advances of both the 1st Polish Armoured Division at St. Aignan and the 4th Canadian Armoured Division at Langannerie. Simonds's plan for Totalize had called for Canadian heavy and medium artillery to support the Canadian and Polish tanks as they advanced, but the accidental US bombing of the Canadian artillery had robbed the Allied armour of the expected fire support. Simonds, knowing of the weakness of the Sherman tanks, which were both under-armoured and under-gunned, had planned for his artillery to knock out Meyer's Tigers and Panthers, and expected the Germans to counter-attack at once with their armour . The next day, Simonds sent the Worthington Force, comprising a battlegroup of the British Columbia regiment and the Algonquin regiment, which however took a wrong turn, and was annihilated by Meyer who sent his Tiger and Panther tanks against the Shermans.

Tractable, on August 14, used a smoke screen in an attempt to shield armour from German anti-tank weaponry. The Canadian historian Desmond Morton wrote that Operation Tractable should have been a disaster as the Wehrmacht had captured a copy of the Canadian operations plan the night before, but despite this, the assault by the II corps under the cover of smoke ended with the Canadians taking Falaise on 16 August 1944. Afterwards, Simonds had the task of closing the "Falaise Gap" with the 1st Polish Armour ed Division under Major General Stanisław Maczek leading the way and engaging in desperate fighting at the Maczuga (Mace) as the Poles called Hill 262 as the German Army Group B sought to escape from Normandy. When Crerar resumed command with the First Army, Simonds resumed his command of II Canadian Corps for the liberation of North-Western Europe. In 1946 he went to London where he attended the Imperial Defence College (IDC). He "found that work at the IDC engaged his alert intelligence. He met and talked to leading politicians, industrialists, and servicemen of the Western Alliance." From 1946 to 1949 he was Chief Instructor there, "a signal honour for a Canadian". He returned to Canada in 1949 to take a role as Commandant of the Canadian Army Command and Staff College and the National Defence College. In 1951 he was appointed CGS. When China entered the Korean War in October 1950, it was believed the world was on the brink of World War III, and on January 16, 1951, the NATO Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, visited Ottawa to ask Canada for help. Simonds wrote at the time that, since the shipping was not available to move two divisions to Europe, the Canadians best be there before World War III started.

thumb|Lieutenant General Simonds inspecting [[II Canadian Corps in Meppen, May 31, 1945|left]]

Simonds clashed with Foulkes, the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee about where to station the Canadians in West Germany. The continentalist Foulkes, who wanted to move Canada closer to the United States, wanted the Canadians to serve with the US Army forces in southern West Germany. Simonds by contrast argued that for historical reasons the Canadians should serve with the British forces in northern West Germany, arguing that the Canadians would fight better with them if the Red Army should invade West Germany. Simonds stated that the Canadians had fought alongside the British successively in the Boer War, the First World War, the Second World War, and the Korean War, and moreover the Canadian Army was closely modelled after the British Army right down to having British-style uniforms and ranks and the same regimental structure; for all these reasons, Simonds felt that placing the Canadians with the British in northern West Germany would be a better fit. As the Canadian decision-makers had been "shocked by the US performance in Korea" while the British forces fighting in Korea had fought well, Simonds won the debate and it was agreed that the Canadians would serve as part of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), though Foulkes was able to ensure the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) units would serve with the US Air Force (USAF) instead of the British Royal Air Force (RAF). From 1950 to 1953, the military went from having 47,000 service personnel to 104,000. Besides the Royal 22<sup>e</sup> Régiment and the 8th Canadian Hussars, the Canadian Army in the 1950s made little acknowledgement of the "French fact", but the Army was more open to French-Canadians than either the Royal Canadian Air Force or the Royal Canadian Navy, where the language of command was English. Simonds wrote at the time that each service required a distinctive leadership style for officers; stating that for a pilot alone in his jet decided by himself to fight or flee when faced with an enemy; for a naval officer holding the equivalent rank as the pilot, the decision to fight or flee was made by the captain of his ship; and for an army officer holding the equivalent ranks as the air force and naval officers had to decide for himself to fight or flee and motivate the men under his command to do the same. Simonds concluded that the plans of the Defence Minister Paul Hellyer to unify the services would never work as it was based on the assumption there was really no difference between war on land, at sea and in the air and a common service could handle all three. and in Genemuiden ("Majoor Generaal Simondsstraat").

Honours

Simonds was decorated as Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau in December 1945 by the Royal family of the Netherlands for his efforts in the liberation of the country.

Simonds was honorary colonel of the Royal Regiment of Canada at the time of the regiment's 100th anniversary in October 1962. He was offered an honorary degree from RMC which he declined, as he had opposed the degree program, fearing the long tenure of civilian instructors would unduly influence the curriculum. On October 29, 1971, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Assessment

Randall Wakelam says, "Canadian biographies and memoirs carry two themes: innovative and hard driving commander; cold and uninspiring leader." Simonds's friend and superior for much of the last two years of the war, General Sir Miles Dempsey, believed Simonds in Normandy to be "the best of my Corps Commanders."

In his book, The Normandy Campaign, Victor Brooks lists Simonds as the most effective corps-level commander of the Allied Forces in Normandy. He wrote:

Sir Max Hastings states: "one of the outstanding Allied corps commanders in Europe, a dour, direct officer who brought unusual imagination to bear on every operational plan for which he was responsible."

References

Bibliography

External links

Order of Canada Citation
'The Role of the Land Forces in Modern Warfare' An Address by Lieutenant General Guy G. Simonds, C.B., C.B.E., D.S.O., C.D. Chief of the General Staff, Canadian Army to the Empire Club on Thursday, February 14th, 1952
Royal Canadian Artillery Museum Great Gunners Guy Simonds
Reference to William Easton, maternal grandfather
Reference to Gus Sinclair
Grace Church on the Hill
Mount Pleasant Group
Bio from World War II Database
Photo at Canadian Military History Gateway
Video Clip from Front Page Challenge
Generals of World War II
Canada's 25 Most Renowned Military Leaders