Military history has given us some great teams of commanders and their chiefs of staff. Napoleon had Marshal Louis-Alexandre Berthier; Dwight D. Eisenhower had Walter Bedell Smith; and Bernard Law Montgomery had Francis Wilfred de Guingand. Fortunately for the Allies in World War II, Bedell Smith and de Guingand served not only in that same war, but also in the same theater starting in 1943. Together they forged a personal and professional partnership that was a vital element in the unprecedented success of the Grand Alliance. “Beetle” Smith is fairly well remembered today, but “Freddie” de Guingand remains largely forgotten outside of British circles.
He deserves better. The ultimate team player, de Guingand was the most-respected and best-liked British officer among the Americans. After the war Smith wrote of him: “General de Guingand is the best staff officer I have ever seen regardless of nationality…and I do not know of any man in whom I have more confidence and for whom I have greater affection.” In his book A Soldier’s Story, General Omar Bradley wrote of de Guingand’s “patience, modesty, and understanding which helped to forge the Allied armies into a single fighting machine. Somewhere in almost every critical Allied decision of the war in Europe, you will find the anonymous but masterful handiwork of this British soldier.”
During the war, Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery wrote of de Guingand to General Sir Alan Brooke (later Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke), Britain’s Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS). He said, “I do not know what I should do without him as he is quite 1st class.” And after the war Montgomery wrote, “Anything I have been able to achieve during the late war could not have been done if he had not been at my side.” Unfortunately, Montgomery’s fine words all too often failed to live up to his treatment of his former chief of staff, especially after the war ended.
