Eric Dorman-Smith
Eric Edward "Chink" Dorman-Smith, MC, who later changed his name to Eric Edward Dorman O'Gowan, was an Irish officer whose career in the British Army began in the First World War and closed at the end of the Second World War. In the 1950s, Dorman-Smith was involved with the Irish Republican Army.
In the 1920s, during the interwar period, he was one of the military thinkers in various countries, like Heinz Guderian in Germany and Charles de Gaulle in France, who realised that technology and motorisation were changing the way that wars and battles were fought. Influenced by J. F. C. Fuller, Archibald Wavell, B. H. Liddell Hart, and many others, Dorman-Smith tried to change the culture of the British Army and held a number of teaching and training roles in various parts of the British Empire. Although he made several contributions in advisory roles during the campaigns in the Western Desert from 1940 to 1941, it was not until May 1942 that he went on active service again. His service in the Second World War is shrouded in controversy and ended when he was fired from his command in August 1944.
Early life
Dorman-Smith was born to a mixed-religion couple in Bellamont Forest, Cootehill, County Cavan, Ireland. He was received into the Catholic Church four days after his birth as a result of his Catholic mother's pleading. His younger brothers, Victor and Reggie, were baptised Protestant. His best friend as a child in Cootehill was John Charles McQuaid, the local doctor's son, who was later appointed Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin.At the age of 12, he was sent to St Anthony's, a Catholic school in Eastbourne, Sussex. His Cavan accent and buck teeth made him stand out and, in the effort to modify his accent, he developed a stutter. While there, his parents moved to Maidenhead, Berkshire in England and, after a year, he was moved to Lambrook, which was a school attended by his younger brothers, whereupon his stutter vanished. In 1910, he went to Uppingham School, Rutland, where he befriended Brian Horrocks, a future general. During his school days he showed that he had strong principles: in particular there were episodes of casual anti-semitism towards friends of his which he reportedly took steps to address.
Dorman-Smith's father insisted he take the entrance exam for the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in December 1912 and he scored 6969/12600, being placed 69th in the order of merit, thus obtaining one of the 172 available places. Horrocks also succeeded, ranked 171. After two terms, he passed out in exemplary fashion, leaving Horrocks to complete a third term, achieving 515/600 in military history and 2031/2800 in general military subjects. His overall score was 7976/10,500, placing him 10th. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the 1st Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers on 25 February 1914, just six months before the outbreak of the First World War. Dorman-Smith gained his nickname "Chink" on his first night in the officers' mess when his fellow subaltern, Richard Vachell, noted his resemblance to the chinkara antelope mascot that the regiment had had to leave behind when they moved back to England from India.
First World War
Dorman-Smith, along with the rest of his battalion, then serving as part of the 9th Brigade of the 3rd Division, was sent to France on 13 August 1914, nine days after Britain entered the First World War. He was among the first troops of the British Expeditionary Force to arrive. The battalion, and Dorman-Smith himself, were involved in the Battle of Mons, where he was wounded in the retreat. Later that year he was involved in the battles of Messines, Armentières and Ypres and, after being promoted on 15 November to the temporary rank of lieutenant, received another wound on 9 December. He was promoted to substantive lieutenant on 2 January 1915.In May 1915 the battalion was involved in fighting at Railway Wood, near Ypres, during the Second Battle of Ypres. Although he had received a shrapnel wound and four lesser injuries from rifle bullets, he organised, under heavy fire, a withdrawal of the survivors of his battalion, for which he was awarded one of the first batch of the Military Cross. Promoted to temporary captain on 26 June 1915, he was mentioned in dispatches on 1 January 1916 and his rank of captain was made permanent on 26 August 1916. After a difficult period of convalescence, he was sent to teach trench warfare to new recruits and in January 1917 he was posted to the Northern School of Instruction. He returned to active service in July 1917 and was temporarily promoted to the acting rank of major on 16 October; he was subsequently made second-in-command of the 10th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers, a Kitchener's Army battalion, then serving on the Western Front as part of the 68th Brigade of the 23rd Division.
In November 1917, Dorman-Smith was posted as a captain to the Italian Piave Front on attachment to the 68th Brigade School, and from 4 April until 6 July 1918 he served as adjutant to the 12th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry, another Kitchener's Army unit, serving in the same 68th Brigade of the 23rd Division. He was mentioned in dispatches a second time on 30 May 1918 and was again promoted to the temporary rank of major on 7 July 1918. He served as 2IC to the battalion and finished the war in Genoa, recovering from an attack of gastroenteritis, with a bar added to his MC. Upon his discharge from hospital he was appointed Commandant of the British Troops and sent to Milan. In Milan on 3 November 1918, he met Ernest Hemingway, who had been wounded at the Italian front and decorated with the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery while serving with the Red Cross. He was posted to the Military Landing Staff at Taranto before returning to England as adjutant to the Northumberland Fusiliers. He was mentioned in dispatches a third time on 9 January 1919.
In June 1921, the regiment was posted to his native Ireland as part of the effort to repress the rebellion. His battalion was part of the Curragh 5th Division and from its headquarters in Carlow, its role was to patrol the county of Kilkenny. He discovered that his childhood nurse had married the local IRA brigadier and on one occasion, helped her bury a cache of hand grenades on the grounds of Bellamont Forest prior to a raid by the Black and Tans but otherwise remained politically neutral.
Between the wars
His period of duty in Ireland ended in February 1922 and he moved to the British Army of the Rhine, still as adjutant of his regiment. He witnessed the breakdown of transport and communications after the French sent troops into the Ruhr basin in January 1923 to enforce war reparations.In 1924, he left his regiment to become an instructor at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, where he became acquainted with Richard O'Connor; the duo went on a walking tour of the Austro-Italian Alps at the end of 1924. In 1927, Dorman-Smith sat the entrance examination for the Staff College, Camberley. In the Strategy paper the examiner, J. F. C. Fuller, awarded him 1,000 marks out of a possible 1,000. The advantage of gaining the p.s.c. was that the two-year course provided a network of 180 highly trained officers for help afterwards. By arriving with such a splash, it is probable that Dorman-Smith became regarded with suspicion by people who would one day be his peers and superior officers. Many of Dorman-Smith's fellow students there included the future general officers of the Second World War, including Philip Christison, Evelyn Barker, Oliver Leese, Eric Hayes, John Hawkesworth, Ronald Penney, John Whiteley, Robert Bridgeman, 2nd Viscount Bridgeman, Eric Nares, Charles Norman, Stanley Kirby, Wilfrid Lloyd, Reginald Savory and Clement West.
On 28 December 1928 he passed out Grade A in the top four and publicly burned his lecture notes, including those from Bernard Montgomery, one of the instructors. They had already clashed on numerous occasions and Dorman-Smith had also failed to attend his class on The Registering of Personality, which he regarded as unnecessary for the formulation of successful tactics. He then became the first infantryman to hold the post of instructor of tactics at Chatham, the Royal Engineers' equivalent of the Staff College. In 1929 he was commissioned to write a textbook on military tactics, which became an official army handbook, Infantry Section Leaders' Training, within two years.
Promoted to the brevet rank of major on 1 January 1931, in July he was appointed brigade major to the 6th Experimental Brigade at Blackdown, under Archibald Wavell, who, along with Richard O'Connor and Claude Auchinleck, were the most significant influences on his career and his most prominent supporters. Wavell aimed to increase the mobility of the army and led exercises to this aim, in which Dorman-Smith assisted. He encouraged Dorman-Smith to ignore the standard manuals and devise new tactical approaches. Promoted to substantive major on 23 November 1933, in 1934, on the recommendation of O'Connor, he was appointed to the War Office at the brevet rank of lieutenant colonel, which he was promoted to on 1 July 1934. He allied himself with Liddell Hart in a crusade against the use of horses in the army. He devised an estimate of British casualties over the first year of a big war into three categories; 25 percent caused by enemy action, 25 percent by indifferent generalship and accidents of war, 50 percent by the Treasury.
It was at that time Dorman-Smith began to clash with Alan Brooke, whom he viewed as the epitome of a traditional Royal Horse Artillery officer, with little interest in the requirements of modern mechanised warfare. On a return to the Staff College, Camberley in 1936, he had to deliver lectures on tactics which he considered already outdated. He spent his leisure time devising with Philip Christison, one of his fellow students at the Staff College almost a decade before and then a fellow instructor, more up-to-date theories of supply, staff duties and tactical handling, only to be reprimanded by Major-General Lord Gort, the Commandant of the Staff College.
After sixteen months, rather than the customary three years, Dorman-Smith was promoted to substantive lieutenant colonel on 26 April 1937 and was appointed Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion of his regiment, now retitled the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, then serving in Egypt. His farewell speech to the Staff College on the success of Benito Mussolini's Abyssinian campaign was not well received, probably because of its emphasis on the more mechanised approach of the Italian Army compared with the British Army. In Egypt, Dorman-Smith clashed with his new command about his disregard for polo training and he was far from impressed by their military ability. He tried, without success, to break down barriers between British and Egyptian companies, probably another campaign that would be held against this unconventional officer.
Late in 1937, he went to Mersa Matruh to re-design the fortifications. His assessment of the terrain was to colour his estimate of Neil Ritchie's generalship when facing Erwin Rommel's assault in mid-1942, and he seems to have realised that El Alamein was going to be the decisive battleground in Egypt. In March 1938, he was offered the post of Director of Military Training for India, a major-general's appointment, and he left Egypt in May. He was promoted to brevet colonel and to the temporary rank of brigadier on 10 May and his permanent rank was advanced to colonel on 1 July. The later Regimental History thanks Dorman-Smith for his modernising efforts in helping the battalion to survive the desert campaign, although it appears that they were glad to see the back of him.
In India, he soon got to know the Commander-in-Chief's loyal aide, "Bunny" Careless, who developed an antipathy that might have re-surfaced when Dorman-Smith was his brigade commander in Italy in 1944. The occupant of the office next door to Dorman-Smith was the Deputy Chief, General Staff, Claude Auchinleck. They became close companions and went on hill-walks before breakfast each day. They developed a plan to transform the Indian Army but the outbreak of the Second World War put paid to it. In January 1940, Auchinleck was appointed to command IV Corps in England. In August of that year, Wavell asked Dorman-Smith to take over command of the Staff College, Haifa in Palestine, taking over the position from Brigadier Alexander Galloway.