Hobart's 79th Armoured Division at War: Invention, Innovation & Inspiration

By the same author

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The Sons of Ulster: Ulstermen at war from the Somme to Korea; Appletree Press, Belfast, 1992

Clear the Way! A History of the 38th (Irish) Brigade, 1941–47; Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1993

Irish Generals: Irish Generals in the British Army in the Second World War; Appletree Press, Belfast, 1993

Only the Enemy in Front: The Recce Corps at War, 1940–46; Spellmount Publishers, Staplehurst, 1994

Key to Victory: The Maiden City in the Second World War; Greystone Books, Antrim, 1995

The Williamite War in Ireland, 1688–1691; Four Courts Press, Dublin, 1998

A Noble Crusade: The History of Eighth Army, 1941–1945; Spellmount Publishers, Staplehurst, 1999

Irish Men and Women in the Second World War; Four Courts Press, Dublin, 1999

Irish Winners of the Victoria Cross (with David Truesdale); Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2000

Irish Volunteers in the Second World War; Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2001

The Sound of History: El Alamein 1942; Spellmount Publishers, Staplehurst, 2002

The North Irish Horse: A Hundred Years of Service; Spellmount Publishers, Staplehurst, 2002

Normandy 1944: The Road to Victory; Spellmount Publishers, Staplehurst, 2004

Ireland’s Generals in the Second World War; Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2004

The Thin Green Line: A History of The Royal Ulster Constabulary GC, 1922–2001; Pen & Sword Books, Barnsley, 2004

None Bolder: A History of 51st (Highland) Division 1939–1945; Spellmount Publishers, Staplehurst, 2006

The British Reconnaissance Corps in World War II; Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2007

Eighth Army in Italy: The Long Hard Slog; Pen & Sword, Barnsley, 2007

The Siege of Derry 1689: The Military History; Spellmount Publishers, Stroud, 2008

Only the Enemy in Front: The Recce Corps at War, 1940–46 (revised p/bk edn); Spellmount Publishers, Stroud, 2008

Ubique: The Royal Artillery in the Second World War; The History Press, Stroud, 2008

Helmand Mission: With the Royal Irish Battlegroup in Afghanistan 2008, Pen & Sword Books, Barnsley, 2009

In the Ranks of Death: The Irish in the Second World War, Pen & Sword Books, Barnsley, 2010

The Humber Light Reconnaissance Car 1941–45, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2011

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by

Pen & Sword Military

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright © Richard Doherty 2011

ISBN 978-1-84884-398-1

ePub ISBN: 9781844686223

The right of Richard Doherty to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted

by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Dedication

To all who served in the ‘Funnies’ of 79th Armoured Division and to their GOC, Major General Sir Percy Hobart

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Part 1 The Making of a Commander – Percy Hobart

1. Early Days and the Great War

2. A Change of Direction

3. Three Armoured Divisions

Part 2 The Creation of 79th Armoured Division and the Development of the ‘Funnies’

4. Now Thrive the Armourers

5. Our Soldiers Stand Full Fairly for the Day

Part 3 79th Division in the Campaign in North West Europe, June 1944–May 1945

6. Unto the Breach

7. The Signs of War Advance

8. The Foe Vaunts in the Field

9. That Winter Lion

10. Let Not Difficulties Deter

11. Through Mud, Through Blood

12. Into the Heart of Germany

13. To the Last Blow

Part 4 Specialized Armour and Hobart After the War

14. Still Looking Forward

15. Postscript

Appendix

Bibliography

Index

Note to readers

No references to sources are included in this book but, for those readers who seek details of the sources used, annotated versions of the book have been deposited in The Tank Museum at Bovington and the Imperial War Museum in London.

Acknowledgements

When Brigadier Henry Wilson, Publishing Manager at Pen and Sword Books, first suggested that I should write this book I hesitated. Part of that hesitation was due to my believing that both Hobart and his ‘Funnies’ of 79th Armoured Division had received enough attention in print in recent years but Henry persisted with his suggestion and I began doing some more research on Hobart and his famous wartime command. I knew that Hobart’s mother, the remarkable Janetta Stanley, was a Tyrone woman, a fact that probably ensured that I took Henry up on his suggestion as my family background is also from that county. (I was not prepared for the discovery that Hobart’s father was also Irish, thus making Hobo another of those Irish generals of the Second World War.)

As with every book of this nature, I enjoyed immensely the research aspect – I’ve always had a problem deciding when the research ends and the writing begins – and this particular book took me into a new area of research – that of genealogy – as I found out more about Hobart’s family background. For their assistance in this aspect of the book, I wish to thank Ronnie and Fredé Trouton, Norman Hughes, Dessie Gordon and Ronnie McLean who helped me find out more about the mysterious ‘runaway marriage’ of Robert Hobart and Janetta Stanley. Colin McCallum knows his way through the trails of family history and he it was who pointed me in the correct direction for a copy of the Robert Hobart/Janetta Stanley marriage certificate. Rather than being a ‘runaway’ affair the marriage was conducted in Janetta’s parish church with one of Robert’s family as the officiating clergyman. One wonders how the family myth – for such it must be – of the ‘runaway marriage’ developed? My sincere thanks go to Colin for all his invaluable assistance and advice.

As the years pass, there are fewer and fewer veterans of the Second World War still with us and so it was difficult to find many to describe their experiences. One such is Ian Hammerton, who served in 22nd Dragoons – the Dinky Doos – and who is the Secretary of the Regimental Old Comrades Association. Not only that, but Ian also wrote of his wartime experiences as a flail troop commander. Thank you, Ian, for all your help.

Many veterans left written accounts of their time with 79th Armoured Division, some of which have been deposited in the Department of Documents at the Imperial War Museum in London. There I was able to read personal accounts, as well as collections of personal papers donated to the Museum. The IWM also allowed me to read books that have long been out of print and its Photograph Archive provided some of the illustrations that appear in this volume. Particular thanks are due to Mr Rod Suddaby for his unstinting help.

War diaries and other official documents were consulted at the National Archives at Kew where, in spite of the many demands made on their time and patience, the staff of the reading and search rooms are always helpful and courteous.

At Kew I had the assistance of Bob O’Hara and his able research team who provided information for me whenever I was unable to get to Kew. And on my visits to Kew it is always a pleasure to enjoy Bob’s company and put the world to rights over cups of tea. My thanks to Bob and his team for all their help.

One of the finest museums of its kind in the world is the Tank Museum at Bovington and it would be impossible to write or research anything on armoured warfare, especially involving the British forces, without consulting the Museum’s experts. David Fletcher, the Historian at the Tank Museum, has been an invaluable help to me in my research, always willing to assist with even the most obscure queries – and usually coming up with an answer. As well as his help as a member of the Tank Museum staff, David has also been a valuable source through his writings on armoured warfare and the fighting vehicles used by 79th Armoured Division. This book would not have been possible without him.

Both the Linenhall Library in Belfast and the Central Library, Londonderry, assisted in tracking down out-of-print titles that I needed for my research and I thank the staff of both institutions for their help.

Following Colin McCallum’s guidance, I approached the General Register Office for Northern Ireland, in Belfast, where I was able to obtain a copy of the marriage certificate for Robert Hobart and Janetta Stanley, thus disproving the story of the ‘runaway marriage’.

My thanks are also due to Henry Wilson and the excellent Pen and Sword team whose professionalism and enthusiasm brought the book to fruition and who are responsible for the quality of the final product.

In the quarter century that I have been writing books I have always had the patient support of Carol, my wife, and my children Joanne, James and Catríona – and, more recently, my grandson Ciarán – for which I am always grateful.

Richard Doherty

Co. Londonderry

December 2010

Prologue

When France was overrun in 1940 and British forces evicted from the European mainland it was not long before the thoughts of Britain’s leaders and military planners were being applied to the problem of returning to the continent to take the war to the Germans on the ground. It may have seemed a wild dream in those early days when Britain was alone save for the countries of the Commonwealth and Empire but the eventual liberation of Europe may be traced to the determination shown by Britain in 1940. That determination was encapsulated in Winston Churchill’s comment to the nation on 17 June that Britons were ‘the sole champions now in arms to defend the world cause. We shall do our best to be worthy of this high honour’. Then, in October, Churchill declared that Britain’s intentions for future operations against Germany should include plans for the invasion and subsequent liberation of mainland Europe. Coincidentally, this aspiration was made just a week before Field Marshal Keitel’s announcement that ‘the Führer has decided that from now on until the Summer [of 1941], preparations for landing in England will be maintained purely as a military and political threat’. A long countdown that would end on 6 June 1944 with Allied soldiers landing on the beaches in the Bay of the Seine had begun.

In the short term there seemed little prospect of British troops fighting on the mainland, except for the small-scale raids of the commandos, but the strategic situation changed with Hitler’s invasion of Russia in June 1941 and the Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in December. Following the latter event, both Hitler and Mussolini, the Italian dictator, made the error of declaring war on the United States, thereby bringing America into the war in Europe. As early as July 1940, Churchill had sent a telegram to President Roosevelt stating that ‘plans ought also to be made for coming to the aid of the conquered populations by landing armies of liberation when opportunity is ripe’. It would take almost four years before the time was ripe for the landing of such armies.

By 1944, the strategic situation had changed dramatically. The German army had been worn down on the eastern front by the Red Army, Allied forces in Italy were drawing off divisions that might have been deployed on the Russian front or in western Europe, and the Luftwaffe had been reduced to a shadow of its former strength. At sea, the German surface fleet had all but ceased to exist, especially following the sinking of Scharnhorst on 26 December 1943, although Tirpitz remained at bay in a Norwegian fjord. However, the Battle of the Atlantic had been turned in the Allies’ favour in mid-1943 and the circumstances were favourable for the building up of Allied liberation armies in Britain.

Of course, the Germans were aware of the dangers of an invasion by the Anglo-Americans and had used their occupation of most of western Europe to prepare defences against such an attack. Hitler’s Festung Europa, ‘fortress Europe’, was protected by a line of fortifications that he described as the Atlantic Wall. What the Germans had created was a twentieth century series of siege defences. In earlier centuries, siege warfare had been common and had demanded the skills of military engineers to both design and break down defences. The great French engineer, Sébastien de Prestre, Seigneur de Vauban and later Marshal of France, had brought about innovations in defences but had also devised methods of attacking and overcoming such defences. Engineers thus played the role of gamekeeper-cum-poacher and Winston Churchill had, in his Army, an outstanding example of a gamekeeper, or engineer, who had become a poacher. That man was Major General Sir Percy Cleghorn Stanley Hobart, commander 79th Armoured Division. In that role, Hobart was the poacher but his military career had begun in the Corps of Royal Engineers. His military education and experience, as a Sapper and a Tankman, made Hobart the ideal choice to command the formation created specially to defeat the siegeworks of the Atlantic Wall and Fortress Europe. Championed by Churchill and Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Hobart more than justified their faith in him, his soldiers and their ‘Funnies’, the armoured fighting vehicles that they took to war.

Part One

The Making of a Commander – Percy Hobart

Chapter One

Early Days and the Great War

Among the marks of a good commander is personality, that combination of qualities and characteristics which distinguishes each individual. Wellington, Robert E. Lee, Patton, Rommel and Slim were all individuals with personalities that impressed those with whom they came in contact. They were not, however, men of identical personality. Wellington, with his scathing wit and inability to tolerate fools or sycophants, was never the most agreeable of men. Lee was a man who put his duty to his state, the Commonwealth of Virginia, before that of the United States of America and who commanded the affection of those who served with him and under him; he is still revered in the southern states today. Patton and Rommel share certain similarities – dash and willingness to take risks included – in addition to an ability to inspire their soldiers, although they came from very different military backgrounds: Patton was a cavalryman and Rommel an infantryman. Slim was one of the finest field commanders of the Second World War – and certainly the best British field commander – as well as having undoubted ability with his feel for battle, understanding of logistics and ability to relate to soldiers of a multi-national army. Thus it is impossible to create a simple template for a successful commander. What he must possess, however, is mastery of his profession. That those mentioned were masters of the profession of arms is beyond doubt. So, does Percy Hobart fit into the category of ‘good commander’? None who knew him would dispute that he did. Indeed they would laud his abilities and his intellect. They might, however, have noted that, in common with Wellington, he could be acerbic and was apt to dismiss those who did not reach the high standards he set.

Percy Cleghorn Stanley Hobart was born in India in 1885, the third son of Robert and Janetta Hobart. A daughter, Elizabeth, known as Betty, to whom Percy was especially close, was born when the family returned to England; a fourth son, James Wilfred Lang Stanley Hobart, was also born in England in 1890, as was a second daughter, Zillah Cecily Nita May, who arrived in 1894. It was Percy’s birth that prompted his father to make the move back to the United Kingdom. Robert Thompson Hobart had had a successful career in the Indian Civil Service but wanted his sons to be educated in England. Thus the family moved to a temporary home in Hampshire where Betty was born; they moved later to Tunbridge Wells in Kent. At this point it might be noted that the third son was not known as Percy within the family, despite the evidence of his birth certificate, but rejoiced in the name of Patrick. This may have reflected his parents’ Irish backgrounds. Janetta Stanley had been born in County Tyrone and had lived at Roughan Park, near the village of Newmills in the parish of Donaghhenry, between the market towns of Cookstown and Dungannon, where her father, Charles, had a 326-acre holding leased from the Earl of Castlestuart. Janetta is described by Kenneth Macksey, Hobart’s biographer, as ‘a small, vital person with a hooky nose and laughing eyes, who mixed a strict sense of duty with impulsive gushes of affection and fun, personality and courage’. Robert Thompson Hobart was also Irish and met his wife to be while home on leave from India. According to Macksey, their marriage was not in the normal pattern of the time. He writes that Robert ‘conducted, at the age of forty-two, a runaway marriage with Janetta Stanley’. This suggests that the couple eloped to wed but, while Robert was some twelve years senior to his bride, there is no evidence to support Macksey’s claim. To the contrary, the evidence, in the form of their marriage certificate, tells us that the couple married at Tullaniskin* Parish Church in the district of Dungannon on 7 October 1880. The clergyman who officiated at the marriage was the Reverend William K. Hobart.

The household in which Hobart grew up was one in which there was much debate that stimulated the young Patrick’s mind and taught him to think beyond the contemporary conventions. Certainly in later life he was never afraid to air views that were not traditional. In a military milieu that characteristic marked him out from most of his peers. Macksey also notes that Janetta was ‘A ‘black’ Calvinist who habitually consulted the Bible in search of precedents for her decisions’. Macksey’s use of the term ‘black’ Calvinist suggests that the Stanleys were Presbyterian. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, members of this faith had been denied civil and religious rights and their ministers were not recognized as being ordained. Presbyterians who took refuge in mountainous and other isolated areas were reputed to subsist partly on blackberries, giving them black mouths and hence the soubriquet ‘blackmouth’. But, as we have seen, the Stanley family belonged to the Church of Ireland, which had been the established church in Ireland until 1871 and the Calvinist description is entirely inaccurate.

His mother’s religious faith, irrespective of her denomination, was not inherited by her third son. Instead, Hobo, as he became known in the Army, sought scientific explanation for the world around him and would not accept anything on the basis of faith alone. In other respects, however, he seems to have inherited much of his mother’s character, especially in the field of organization: as the backbone of the Hobart household she took ‘sole charge of the family management’. It can also be argued that he shared his mother’s evangelism, albeit in a very different field: in expounding his theories of armoured warfare in the interwar years, Hobart had about him something of the character of an Old Testament prophet. Not all of his character can be ascribed to his mother’s influence and genes, however, since Robert Hobart also possessed management skills: at the time of his marriage to Janetta, he was Acting Inspector General of Police in the United Provinces (of Agra and Oudh), now Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Similar management skills were to be evident in his son’s military career.

According to the 1901 census, when they were living at 9 Ferndale Park in Tunbridge Wells in Kent, both Robert and Janetta had been born in Ireland; their situation remained the same in the 1911 census. Although the census documents do not indicate the county of Robert’s birth, their marriage certificate shows his residence at the time of the ceremony as St Ann’s Parish, Dublin. Coupled with the fact that his father’s ‘rank or profession’ is given as collector of customs, this suggests that Robert Hobart was a Dubliner. Thus it would appear that Hobo was Irish on both sides of his family. That Robert met Janetta during the course of a leave from his duties in India would also suggest that he had strong family connections in Ireland. Hobo can, therefore, be added to that illustrious canon of Irish generals, including Alexander, Auchinleck, Dill, Montgomery, O’Connor, Pile and Templer, who did so much for British arms in the Second World War.

Hobart was convinced that his family was connected to that of Oliver Cromwell. This belief sprang from the knowledge that one of the maids of honour to Catherine of Braganza, Charles II’s queen, was a Mary Hobart, daughter of the parliamentarian leader John Hampden, who is commemorated by a statue in the Central Lobby of the Palace of Westminster. Hampden’s mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Sir Henry Cromwell and the aunt of Oliver. Although Hobart was never able to prove the connection with Cromwell, the possibility that he had such a connection ‘acted, for the best part of his life, as an inspiration

The young Patrick was sent to Temple Grove School in East Sheen, Richmond. Temple Grove was a preparatory school founded in 1810 and one of the oldest such schools in England. From 1894 to 1902 the headmaster was the Reverend Hubert Allen. Two of the Duke of Wellington’s sons had attended Temple Grove while later pupils included Douglas Bader and Sir Tyrone Guthrie. The school’s historian notes that the ‘curriculum was almost entirely confined to Latin and Greek literature, although Euclid’s propositions were recited and French and German were taught’. Patrick much preferred the classroom to the sports field, where he showed only average ability, and his academic diligence was rewarded in 1899 when he was awarded a classical scholarship to Clifton College at Bristol.

Clifton College had a cadet corps which Patrick joined on entering the school. By now, his mind was set on a military career, a choice of which his parents approved. In the course of his first term at Clifton, the Cadet Corps, with Patrick in its ranks, was inspected by the Queen Empress. Now in the closing years of her long reign, Queen Victoria was driven slowly in a victoria, a low four-wheeled carriage, down the line of cadets to whom she bowed gracefully at intervals. An occasion such as this must have made a lasting impression on most, if not all, of the cadets. Although Patrick had eschewed the sports field at prep school, he adopted a different attitude at Clifton where sport had an important position in the Cadet Corps’ curriculum. With that incentive, Patrick applied himself, especially to rugby, although he never gained a place in the 1st XV. His academic progress was good and in the Cadet Corps he found an aptitude for technical matters which led to a leading role in the engineer squad. Not surprisingly, he passed into the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1902. The ‘Shop’, as it was known due to its origins in a converted workshop of the Royal Arsenal, was the establishment that produced officers for the Royal Regiment of Artillery and the Corps of Royal Engineers. (It would later cater for Royal Corps of Signals officers and those from other technical corps, including about half of the Royal Tank Corps’ officers.) The senior of the Army’s two officer training establishments, the RMA Woolwich closed at the beginning of the Second World War as did the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. After the war the two were combined as the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

The Shop proved to be a hothouse for Hobart’s talents. At Temple Grove and Clifton he had demonstrated both a keen brain and an aptitude for problem solving which blossomed at Woolwich in the company of like-minded future officers. Patrick’s attitude to Woolwich can best be summed up in his memory of constant sunshine: ‘I don’t remember rainy or dull days’. The sunshine was in his mind and in the words of his biographer

Adept at setting his thoughts on paper, quick to assimilate the contents of books, his true bent appeared in an ability to grasp practical, mechanical matters at sight, his mind acquiring the habit of short cuts to the solution of a problem, enabling his thoughts to race ahead of slower minds to reveal undreamt possibilities.

At Woolwich Hobart was a high achiever in every activity except sport in which, yet again, the top honours eluded him. But he proved to be a fine shot with a ‘distinguished’ pass from the School of Musketry at Hythe in Kent while his subject markings from the School of Military Engineering at Chatham were at least ‘very good’ or ‘above average’ in every subject. Nor did he lack the social graces considered essential for an Army officer: his final report described him as ‘fond of society, zealous, smart and punctual’. According to the Commandant at Chatham he was ‘As good a type of young officer as one could wish to have in the Corps. I cannot speak too highly of him’. Thus it seemed that the young Hobart was on the threshold of a distinguished career that could take him to the summit of his profession.

One indicator of Hobart’s perceived future was the fact that he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers and seconded to the elite 1st Bengal Sappers and Miners in 1906. Only the best graduates of the Shop were accepted by this corps which, in the year Hobart joined, was renamed 1st Prince of Wales’s Own Sappers and Miners.* Four years later, when King George V ascended the throne, it became 1st King George’s Own Sappers and Miners; the presidency titles were restored after the Great War. Of his new military family, Hobart wrote

They were very much a Corps d’élite as the C in C India had recently called them. Picked from a long waiting list – one had to resign if one got engaged to be married … of the establishment of 18 officers, nine became Generals, three Brigadiers and four were killed.

We all played polo: we all pigsticked: we all shot big game both in the Plains and in the Himalayas … We got our whiskey out in casks and it was the subalterns’ duty to bottle it – the fumes made one quite intoxicated.

The Bengal Sappers and Miners demanded high standards and allowed no honeymoon period for new subalterns, as Hobart discovered when, less than six months after joining, he found himself in a two-company group detached some 200 miles into the Himalayas to cut a supply of deodar trees of up to twelve inches in diameter and fifty feet long. It was hard work but a sound introduction to the unit and to taking responsibility for soldiers.

Hobart’s career, and life, might have ended in 1907 during a hunting expedition in the Garwhal hills had it not been for the proximity of a stream. On his first annual leave, while stalking his prey he had the misfortune to put his foot down in a bees’ nest. These were not honey bees but wild black bees, of a breed known for their aggressive behaviour towards intruders. Many who found themselves in a similar position did not survive to recount their experience but Hobart was fortunate. At the bottom of the slope where he was hunting was a swift-flowing stream into which he had the presence of mind to throw himself. Thus he escaped the vengeance of the bees and could relate the story of what would be the first of many narrow escapes.

Soldiering in India was not restricted to garrison duties but could include active service on India’s fretful North-West Frontier, now the North-West Frontier province of Pakistan. Tribal loyalties were more important than any others to the people of this region and disputes between groups could lead to what is described today as low intensity warfare. So it was in 1907 when the Afridis of the Bazar valley began raiding. An expedition was mounted against them in February 1908 and seemed to have achieved its objective after only three weeks. Scarcely had the units of that expedition returned, however, than another tribal grouping, the Mohmands, took up the baton of troublemaking. The Mohmands had support from their neighbours in Afghanistan – in this part of the world the arbitrarily established international border, the Durand Line, was not recognized and local people refer to Pashtunistan, an area straddling the border between Afghanistan and British India, now Pakistan. Thus it was that another punitive expedition was launched.

This new expedition included a significant element of engineers, who were needed to find and pump water in the dry land in which the force was operating as well as opening routes for the advance and demolishing buildings to deny the enemy cover. Typically, the expedition was operating against a will-o’-the-wisp enemy, who rarely stood to fight but harried the advancing columns, usually from the flanks. Such tactics required the picqueting of all high ground overlooking the line of advance so as to deny the advantage of height to the enemy. Thus the manpower needed to advance was increased considerably. Perhaps the most important lesson of the expedition for Hobart was the need to have efficient and effective supply and maintenance for troops operating in such difficult terrain. It was a lesson that he would never forget and which would be reinforced by further experiences on campaign. As Macksey notes, he was also able

to study the psychological effects of hostile small-arms fire on his own courage and that of other men – to learn how the crack of bullets and the fear of death can inject a speedy reaction in some, throw a cautious cloak of care over others and leave none totally unmoved by the experience.

In 1910, Hobart came home to Britain on leave. This was the year in which King Edward VII died and his son ascended the throne as King George V. The new monarch had resolved that he should have not one but two coronations, the second in India for the benefit of his Indian subjects. In such a manner did the Delhi Durbar of December 1911 come about. As well as presenting the new King Emperor and Queen Empress to the people of India, the event also marked the move of the capital of India from Calcutta to Delhi. Although he would have preferred to be serving with his Sappers and Miners, Hobart was caught up in the preparations for the Durbar. Sent back to India to survey and lay out the Durbar camp site, he was later appointed as a staff captain to the military staff for the Durbar.

His new role gave Captain Hobart a unique experience and brought him into direct contact with both King and Queen. The Durbar site was a tented city with a very real danger of fire. In modern terms, a risk assessment had to be carried out and a system of fire drills and picquets was evolved and practised, with watch towers built so that the earliest possible warning might be given of any outbreak of fire. When it was learned that Queen Mary had an especial fear of fire, Hobart was authorized to enter the Queen’s apartment should fire break out, seize the monarch and carry her to a safe place. Needless to say, there was no dress rehearsal of this procedure with Queen Mary herself but there were many rehearsals of the procedure to be undertaken should a fire break out in the Royal presence.

The training and rehearsals proved invaluable when the worst of all eventualities did occur. While the King Emperor was conducting an investiture, with an audience of over 3,000, the fire alarm sounded and the smell of burning was detected. Queen Mary sat unmoving while King George calmly continued to present the ribbons and stars of decorations while a nearby tent blazed. Captain Hobart directed firefighters to deal with the conflagration while deploying other personnel around the tent in which the King was holding the investiture with orders to cut down the sides of the tent should that become necessary. Meantime, Hobart prepared to dash to the aid of his Queen. The need for that dash was averted when Hobart’s men brought the fire under control. Nonetheless, their Majesties knew full well what had happened and Hobart was summoned to the Royal presence the following morning, there to be presented with a gold tie pin as a mark of gratitude and to receive from the unbending Queen Mary the rebuke ‘Young man, we might all have been killed’. As Macksey commented, it was a moment he cherished for the rest of his days.

Hobart, now an experienced but still young officer, had also cultivated many interests outside military life, including building a reputation as a conversationalist who could hold forth on many topics, frequently dominating the company. This was especially true when his older brother Charles, named for their maternal grandfather, was also present. Charles Hobart had followed his father into the Indian Civil Service and when the pair were together it was, as a fellow officer of the Sappers and Miners commented, difficult for anyone else to break into the conversation. The brothers had also gained a broader reputation with Charles becoming known as the ‘Civil’ and Patrick the ‘Uncivil’. Indeed, the latter already was displaying that acerbic manner that was to be his trademark in the years ahead and which would bring trouble on his shoulders that would threaten his career. He was also showing signs of being prone to depression and was introspective with a view of his own abilities that underestimated those very attributes. Strangely, Macksey chooses to comment that Hobart’s ‘enormous swings in emotion [were] completely in tune with his Irish ancestry’. This stereotypical analysis is hardly one with which Hobart would have agreed.

In August 1914 the Great War broke out. When hostilities began, Hobart was on leave in England but was required to return to India to rejoin the Sappers and Miners whereas he would have preferred to get into action straight away. As with so many in those heady days, he believed that the war would soon be over, perhaps before the Indian Expeditionary Force arrived in Europe, and he would be denied the chance of action. As the first Indian troops arrived in Europe, Hobart was in India, frustrated at the lack of action, a frustration that was exacerbated when another Indian force was sent to Mesopotamia on the outbreak of war with Turkey in early-November. Finally, orders came for Hobart to join the first draft of reinforcements for Europe and, with forty-four other members of the Sappers and Miners, he disembarked at Marseilles on 1 January 1915. Ordered to move from Marseilles on the 9th, he was stricken by a fever that laid him low for a month. To him, this was yet another act of fate that seemed to prevent his progress in the military life. Thus it was not until 2 March that he came within earshot of the guns. Active service was to be his life for the next three years.

The fact that an Indian Corps served on the Western Front is not well known but the Indians served with distinction in the decidedly alien, to them, battleground of France and Flanders, during which 5,015 of their number lost their lives. Lieutenant General H. B. B. Watkis’s Lahore Division was the first Indian formation to reach Europe, followed by the Meerut Division. Among the divisional troops of the latter were a HQ Divisional Engineers and Nos 3 and 4 Companies of King George V’s Own Sappers and Miners. It was to the Meerut Division that Hobart reported for duty close to Neuve Chapelle as the British First Army was preparing to take Aubers ridge. This assault was Hobart’s first major action in the Great War and it began a process of developing his higher military education. He witnessed the preparations for the attack, the careful planning, the build-up of supplies of ammunition and equipment, the organization of the artillery fire plan, and the deception schemes intended to mislead the enemy about British intentions as well as the careful preparation of the infantry’s jumping-off places.

While working with his sappers around the exposed Port Arthur strongpoint on the day before the attack, Hobart decided to take a closer look at the enemy lines and, with two men, crawled into an old trench and into no man’s land. Leaving one man behind, he moved forward with a scout to within a short distance of the most forward German positions where they came up against chevaux de frise. They also spotted the heads of two German soldiers silhouetted against the sky but not before the Germans had spotted them and fired on them, prompting Hobart to return to the Port Arthur strongpoint.

On 10 March, Hobart was to command a group of sappers attached to the Jullunder Brigade. Their task was to carry out engineer tasks and they were to be protected from excessive casualties by the men of 2nd/2nd King Edward’s Own Gurkha Rifles. In the course of the ensuing battle, Hobart contrived to attach himself and his men to 2nd Leicesters of the Garwhal Brigade and he suggested to Lieutenant Colonel Gordon of the Leicesters that a company should be sent to outflank the enemy positions. This Gordon did and Hobart’s sappers were shortly called upon to support their attack. Although the Gurkhas’ CO tried to stop him going forward, he did so and found himself and his men in a battle with the German defenders as the Leicesters battled along a German trench before building a sandbag wall from the cover of which they, and Hobart’s Sappers and Miners, provided support for the other attacking elements of the brigade with small arms and grenades. The fighting continued for three days during which Hobart

moved restlessly about the sodden field, seemingly tireless and taking the minimum sleep. The first British attack had broken clean through the German front line and nearly breached the second,