DW’s full account of his trip with ‘Monty’s Double’

The vital importance of misleading the enemy about D Day has already been mentioned by me. One thing we felt certain German Intelligence would expect was that, shortly before D Day, the Allies would launch an all-out offensive in Italy, with the object of preventing any enemy divisions there from being withdrawn and sent to France. In view of this, it was plausible that the General responsible for the NEPTUNE landings would fly out to General Alexander’s H.Q. to concert plans with him, and the enemy knew that Montgomery was to direct the invasion. Therefore, if Monty could be shown to have left Britain for Italy on, say, D-1, they would deduce that the invasion was definitely not going to take place during the next few days.

Obviously Monty would be far too occupied to take a trip to Italy the day before he was to land in France. But we might be able to find someone capable of impersonating him.

With this is mind, we sent to a firm in Wardour Street which furnished us with a number of large volumes containing the photographs of scores of small-part actors. In it we found one of a Mr. M.E. Clifton James, who had the same long nose and in other respects a definite resemblance to our headache-making General. Enquiries revealed that Clifton James had become a Lieutenant in the Pay Corps, and was stationed up in Scotland.

He was ordered down to London and interviewed by "Himmler" at the War Office in Room 005; which was used by M.I.5. for such purposes. James was told nothing about the purpose for which he was wanted, but simply asked if he was prepared to go overseas. Being middle-aged, he replied that he didn’t really want to, but added very properly that if it was for some special service to his country, he would. To his astonishment it was then revealed to this very ordinary and not particularly intelligent little man that he was wanted to become an understudy for Monty.

With no further information he was packed off to the north, where the General was then on leave. Monty, having been duly briefed about our plan, played up very well. On several occasions he took James out fishing with him and gave him plenty of opportunities to study his way of holding himself and his mannerisms.

They then returned to London. In great secrecy, James was fitted with a uniform ablaze with decorations and an aircraft was laid on to take him to Gibraltar.

The plan was that he should arrive there fairly early in the morning, be received by the Governor, General Mason McFarlane, and Bill Elliot, inspect a guard of honour, be motored off to breakfast at Government House, return to the airfield and, with due honours, be flown off to Algiers, where Dudley would take charge of him.

The airfield at Gibraltar was no distance from and in clear view of Algeciras. We knew that on the top of a tall building there a powerful telescope had been mounted through which, from dawn to dusk, relays of German agents kept watch on the airfield and duly reported anything of interest that took place on it. It was therefore a certainty that within a few hours of "Monty’s" arrival, it would be known that he had passed through Gib, and assumed that he was on his way to make final arrangements with Alex.

Everything seemed to be in good train when, only a couple of days before the operation was due to take place, someone asked, "Has James ever flown? If not, he may be air-sick, and it would be calamitous if our Monty staggered out of the aircraft vomiting all over the place."

The question was put to James, and his reply was, "No, I’ve never travelled by air." On hearing this, Johnny turned to me, and said, "Dennis, this is your job. Take him up and fly him somewhere."

Of course he did not mean it literally, as I can’t even drive a car. But I laid on an aircraft for next morning and arranged a flight that served a personal purpose about which I was rather anxious. Joan and I had spent our last leave with Cuckoo (Lady Twysden), at her home at Hordle, near Lymington in south Hampshire. No 8 St. John’s Wood Park had been too badly damaged in the blitz for us to wish to return there; any anyhow, our lease had run out. By then, too, London had become incredibly dreary and, as we wanted a fairly large house for visits from the members of our ever-growing family, we had decided that when the war was over we would go to live in the country. Moreover, at that time, I was one of the very few people who knew that our return to the Continent would take place within the next few months, so property was at an all-time low. On this Spring leave we felt that South Hampshire, being a pleasant part of England and not too far from London, would be a good place to make a new home, so we got orders to view several properties. None that we saw appealed to us much until we were taken by Cuckoo to tea with some friends of hers, a Colonel and Mrs. Mears, who owned a house they were thinking of selling, called Withybeds, about a mile to the south of Lymington.

Withybeds was a rambling place, with many rooms, but small and low-ceilinged, so it was not at all what we were looking for. But, as we walked back towards the town, I saw through some trees a smallish, square Georgian mansion, and said, "That’s the sort of house I want". We learned that it was called Grove House.

Enquiries elicited the facts that it had been let for the duration of the war to a furniture and removal firm, Messrs C. Ford, in which to store furniture that had been removed from much larger houses taken over by the Services, and that it was for sale. The price asked when it had been let to Ford’s in the summer of 1940 had been £9,000. This had since come down to £7,500.

Next day we went over it. That is to say, we peered into rooms stacked to the ceiling with furniture. We could judge their size only from the outside dimensions, but the house was in good condition, as to preserve the stored furniture, the central heating had been kept on during the winters.

Joan and I liked the place and felt that, with its four acres of land, it had great possibilities; so I made an offer of £6,500 for it; which, even counting on a mortgage, was then as much as I could afford. To my delight, my offer was accepted.

By May, the contract for the purchase was sent to me, together with a plan of the property, which did not tally with the area I had been led to believe I was buying. The agent wrote apologetically to explain that, instead of a one-acre field to the north of the kitchen garden which he had shown us, actually the land that went with the house was a two-acre field to the south of it; but separated from it by a road.

I felt that the greater acreage was compensation for the division of the property; and, anyhow, I wanted the house, so I closed the deal. But naturally I was anxious to see what I had bought. It then occurred to me that, Noel Wild having made his temporary H.Q. at an Air Station down in Devonshire, I could use the pretext of a visit to him for my flight with the false Montgomery and, during it, fly over Grove Place.

The weather was very pleasant, the flight uneventful. To my relief, James was not airsick. Noel, having gone off on some urgent job, was not at the Station; so we had to pay for a very indifferent lunch. Afterwards, to my fury, I was told by the Station Commander that the aircraft could not fly back over South Hampshire, because on security grounds the area had been closed to air traffic.

Determined to achieve my object, I demanded a car to take us back to London, in order that I could go via Lymington. It was only on very rare occasions that I threw my weight about as one of the Prime Minister’s Staff Officers. But when it suited me I had no hesitation in doing so. A large car and driver were provided, and we set off.

Lymington must have been a good fifty miles off our direct route and I was plagued with frustration on finding that our driver was about the slowest I had ever sat behind. But to order a man to drive faster is one of those things it is neither sensible nor fair to do. At thirty miles an hour we crawled to Lymington, so we did not arrive there until about five o’clock.

Hastily, having alighted at Grove, I told James and the driver to go get themselves tea in the town then pick me up in half an hour. A swift survey of the property gave me more or less what I wanted to know, although to have seen it from the air would have suited my purpose better.

It happened that it was May 16th and the birthday of my eldest stepson, Bill. We had arranged a special dinner party at Chatsworth Court. With this in mind I hacked a great armful of lilac off one of the big bushes in the garden, to take back with me.

In those days there was hardly any traffic on the roads, so our driver ought to have got us back to London in a little over two hours, but it was after half-past eight before I was home. As I got out of the car, which was to take James on to his lodging, I shook hands with him and, as all day we had never exchanged a word about his mission, to his astonishment I said, "I know all about the journey that has been arranged for you. Best of luck."

I never saw him again. But the ruse was one hundred per cent successful. He played his part admirably...

Source: DW’s unpublished memoirs