Claude Auchinleck
Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck, was a British Indian Army commander who saw active service during the world wars. A career soldier who spent much of his military career in India, he rose to become commander-in-chief of the Indian Army by early 1941 during the Second World War. In July 1941 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Middle East Theatre, but after initial successes the war in North Africa turned against the British-led forces under his command and he was relieved of the post in August 1942 during the North African campaign.
In June 1943, he was once again appointed Commander-in-Chief, India, where his support through the organisation of supply, maintenance and training for General William Slim's Fourteenth Army played an important role in its success. He served as commander-in-chief, India, until the Partition in 1947, when he assumed the role of supreme commander of all British forces in India and Pakistan until late 1948.
Early life and career
Born at 89 Victoria Road in Aldershot, Hampshire, the son of John Claud Alexander Auchinleck and Mary Eleanor Auchinleck. His father, a colonel in the Royal Horse Artillery of the British Army, was posted to Bangalore in British India, with his family accompanying him, while Claude was very young. It was from here that he developed a love for the country that would last for most of his life. Returning to England after the death of his father in 1892, Auchinleck attended Eagle House School at Crowthorne and then Wellington College on scholarships. From there he went on to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned as an unattached second lieutenant in the Indian Army on 21 January 1903, and joined the 62nd Punjabis in April 1904. He soon learned several Indian languages, and, able to speak fluently with his soldiers, he absorbed a knowledge of local dialects and customs: this familiarity engendered a lasting mutual respect, enhanced by his own personality.He was promoted to lieutenant on 21 April 1905, and then spent the next two years in Tibet and Sikkim before moving to Benares in 1907 where he caught diphtheria. After briefly serving with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers at Aldershot he returned to Benares in 1909 and became adjutant of the 62nd Punjabis with promotion to captain on 21 January 1912. Auchinleck was an active freemason.
First World War
Auchinleck saw active service in the First World War and was deployed with his regiment to defend the Suez Canal: in February 1915 he was in action against the Turks at Ismailia. His regiment moved into Aden to counter the Turkish threat there in July 1915. The 6th Indian Division, of which the 62nd Punjabis were a part, was landed at Basra on 31 December 1915 for the Mesopotamian campaign. In July 1916 Auchinleck was promoted acting major and made second in command of his battalion. He took part in a series of fruitless attacks on the Turks at the Battle of Hanna in January 1916 and was one of the few British officers in his regiment to survive these actions.He became acting commanding officer of his battalion in February 1917 and led his regiment at the Second Battle of Kut in February 1917 and the Fall of Baghdad in March 1917. Having been mentioned in despatches and having received the Distinguished Service Order in 1917 for his service in Mesopotamia, he was promoted to the substantive rank of major on 21 January 1918, to temporary lieutenant-colonel on 23 May 1919 and to brevet lieutenant-colonel on 15 November 1919 for his "distinguished service in Southern and Central Kurdistan" on the recommendation of the Commander-in-Chief of the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force.
Between the world wars
Auchinleck attended the Staff College, Quetta, between 1920 and 1921. As a lieutenant colonel, he outranked most of his fellow students and even some members of the staff. Despite performing well there – passing the course and being among the top ten students – he was critical of many aspects of the college, which he believed to be too theoretical and with little emphasis being placed on matters such as supply and administration, both of which he thought had been mishandled in the campaign in Mesopotamia. He married Jessie Stewart in 1921. Jessie had been born in 1900 in Tacoma, Washington, to Alexander Stewart, head of the Blue Funnel Line that plied the west coast of the United States. When he died about 1919, their mother took her, her twin brother Alan and her younger brother Hepburne back to Bun Rannoch, the family estate at Innerhadden in Perthshire. Holidaying at Grasse on the French Riviera, Auchinleck, who was on leave from India at the time, met Jessie on the tennis courts. She was a high-spirited, blue-eyed beauty. Things moved quickly, and they were married within five months. Sixteen years younger than Auchinleck, Jessie became known as 'the little American girl' in India, but adapted readily to life there. They had no children.Auchinleck became temporary deputy assistant quartermaster general at Army Headquarters in February 1923 and then second-in-command of his regiment, which in the 1923 reorganisation of the Indian Army had become the 1st Punjab Regiment, in September 1925. He attended the Imperial Defence College in 1927 and, having been promoted to the permanent rank of lieutenant-colonel on 21 January 1929 he was appointed to command his regiment. Promoted to full colonel on 1 February 1930 with seniority from 15 November 1923, he became an instructor at the Staff College, Quetta in February 1930 where he remained until April 1933.
He was promoted to temporary brigadier on 1 July 1933 and given command of the Peshawar Brigade, which was active in the pacification of the adjacent tribal areas during the Mohmand and Bajaur Operations between July and October 1933: during his period of command he was mentioned in despatches. He led a second punitive expedition during the Second Mohmand Campaign in August 1935 for which he was again mentioned in despatches, promoted to major-general on 30 November 1935 and appointed a Companion of the Order of the Star of India on 8 May 1936.
On leaving his brigade command in April 1936, Auchinleck was on the unemployed list until September 1936 when he was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Director of Staff Duties in Delhi. He was then appointed to command the Meerut District in India in July 1938. In 1938 Auchinleck was appointed to chair a committee to consider the modernisation, composition and re-equipment of the British Indian Army: the committee's recommendations formed the basis of the 1939 Chatfield Report which outlined the transformation of the Indian Army – it grew from 183,000 in 1939 to over 2,250,000 men by the end of the war.
Second World War
Norway 1940
On the outbreak of war, Auchinleck was appointed to command the Indian 3rd Infantry Division, but in January 1940 was summoned to the United Kingdom to command IV Corps, the only time in the war that a wholly British corps was commanded by an Indian Army officer. He received promotion to acting lieutenant general on 1 February 1940 and to the substantive rank of lieutenant general on 16 March 1940. In May 1940 Auchinleck took over command of the Anglo-French ground forces during the Norwegian campaign, a military operation that was doomed to fail.Auchinleck arrived in Greenock, after the fall of Norway, on 12 June, by which time the Battle of France was nearing its end, with the majority of the BEF in France having been evacuated from the port of Dunkirk, with the French surrender only a few days away. Due to these reasons, all attention was now given to the defence of the UK which many believed would soon be invaded by the Germans. In mid-June he was given command of the recently established V Corps, then serving in Southern Command under Lieutenant General Sir Alan Brooke. His stay was not to be for very long, however, as, just a few weeks later, Brooke succeeded General Sir Edmund Ironside as Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, with Auchinleck succeeding Brooke as GOC-in-C of Southern Command, responsible for the defence of Southern England, where the expected invasion would come from. The recently vacated V Corps was taken over by Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery, who disliked Auchinleck intensely, possibly due to his disdain for the Indian Army and its officers. The relationship between the two future field marshals was not easy, with Montgomery later writing:
Many of Montgomery's actions in the next few weeks and months could be considered as insubordination, with one incident in particular standing out, when Montgomery went over Auchinleck's head directly to the Adjutant-General on issues related to officers and men being transferred to and from Montgomery's V Corps. Auchinleck was not to deal with this behaviour for long as in December he was ordered to succeed his friend, General Sir Robert Cassels, as Commander-in-Chief, India. By now known throughout the army as "the Auk", he was destined to encounter Montgomery again, although the circumstances there would not be at all pleasant.
India and Iraq January–May 1941
Promoted to full general on 26 December, Auchinleck returned to India in January 1941 to assume his new appointment, in which position he was also appointed to the Executive Council of the Viceroy of India and appointed ADC General to the King, a ceremonial position he was to hold until after the end of the war. In April he succeeded Lieutenant General Sir Travers Clarke as colonel of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.In April 1941, RAF Habbaniya was threatened by the new pro-Axis regime of Rashid Ali. This large Royal Air Force station was west of Baghdad in Iraq and General Archibald Wavell, Commander-in-Chief Middle East Command, was reluctant to intervene, despite the urgings of Winston Churchill, because of his pressing commitments in the Western Desert and Greece. Auchinleck, however, acted decisively, sending the 1st Battalion of the King's Own Royal Regiment by air to Habbaniya and shipping the 10th Indian Infantry Division by sea to Basra. Wavell was prevailed upon by London to send Habforce, a relief column, from the British Mandate of Palestine but by the time it arrived in Habbaniya on 18 May the Anglo-Iraqi War was virtually over.