Guy Simonds
Guy Granville Simonds, 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 in London, initially as a student and later as an instructor, before returning to Canada to command the National Defence College, Canada. In 1951, at the age of just 48, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff, 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 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 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 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 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 with the rank of brevet captain, he attended the Long Gunnery Staff Course in England. He was accompanied to England by his wife, and his first child was born there. He returned to Kingston in 1934. In 1936 and 1937 he attended the Staff College, Camberley in England. Major-General Lord Gort was the commandant at the time, although he was soon replaced by Major-General Sir Ronald Adam, while the instructors included Lieutenant Colonel William Slim. Simonds worked extremely hard and thoroughly enjoyed his time there and he was deemed by his superiors to have one of the outstanding students on the two-year course. Furthermore, had he been a British officer, he would have been specially selected for an accelerated promotion in order that he may return to the college to serve as an instructor.
This was not to be, however. Promoted to major, he returned to the Royal Military College of Canada as an associate professor of artillery and later as instructor in tactics. The college's commandant at the time was Brigadier Harry Crerar, a fellow gunner officer who was to play a significant part in Simonds's future military career, and with whom he had served under towards the end of the 1920s. Historian J.L. Granatstein writes of the two men:
During the pre-war years, Simonds and E. L. M. Burns, a future corps commander, debated concepts in the pages of Canadian Defence Quarterly.
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. 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, "Andy" McNaughton, a fellow gunner officer who had previously been Chief of the General Staff. 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, 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, intended to fill the shortage of trained staff officers. He then became GSO I with the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division under Victor Odlum, a veteran of both the Second Boer War and the First World War in his sixties who was really too old to command in this newer conflict. Despite this, Odlum came to admire the younger man, informing McNaughton of Simonds's, "splendid work" and that he had, "never had an officer on my staff who gave better service."
Shortly thereafter, on August 7, 1941 he was promoted again, now to brigadier, and made acting Brigadier General Staff of I Canadian Corps under McNaughton and later George Pearkes. Later he was confirmed as brigadier and stayed in the BGS role under Harry Crerar until mid-July 1942. Crerar, however, had opposed Simonds' appointment and considered his removal. During his time as BGS, numerous exercises, including Bumper in September 1941 and Tiger in May 1942 were conducted, with Simonds catching British Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery's eye on both occasions.
In July and August 1942 Simonds was involved in planning for an abortive Churchill-inspired attack on Norway, codenamed "Jupiter", thereby avoiding the Dieppe Raid debacle. Simonds's plan for "Jupiter" required so many ground troops, together with significant air and naval forces in support, that Churchill was forced to abandon the idea. Although the operation was aborted, Simonds received praise for his help in writing the appreciation, with the British Chiefs of Staff Committee informing McNaughton that "This was one of the clearest and most ably worked out appreciations that they had ever had before them."
In September 1942, he was made commander of the 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade, part of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division, now commanded by Major-General H. L. N. Salmon. The brigade was sent to Inverary in Scotland in December 1942, where it took part in training for combined operations.
In January 1943 Simonds became chief of staff of the First Canadian Army, again serving under McNaughton, with Brigadier Howard Graham assuming command of the 1st Brigade. The Army performed poorly in Exercise Spartan. Simonds suggested that McNaughton separate his "political" functions from "fighting" headquarters. McNaughton grew angry, and within 48 hours Simonds was on attachment to the British Eighth Army, under Montgomery, then fighting in Tunisia.
Sicily 1943
On April 20, 1943 Simonds was promoted to major-general and appointed General Officer Commanding of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, 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. British Rear Admiral Philip Mack, Lieutenant Colonel Chuck Finlay and several other members of Salmon's staff were among the casualties.
In this last post he led the 1st Canadian Division through the invasion of Sicily, which started on July 10, 1943. The division was placed under the command of British XXX Corps, serving alongside the veteran 51st Infantry Division, commanded by Lieutenant-General Oliver Leese. XXX Corps was part of the British Eighth Army, under the command of General Sir Bernard Montgomery. Aged just 40, he was the youngest Canadian officer to lead a division in action at that time. He came under fire for the first time on July 16, 1943, after nearly 17 years of service in the Canadian Army.
Always a supporter of Simonds, Montgomery was impressed with the way the younger man had commanded 1st Division throughout the brief but bitter campaign in Sicily, marking him out as a man destined for higher command. 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.