ABSTRACT
On Christmas Eve, 1943, the War Office signalled General Montgomery the news of his appointment to succeed General Paget in the command of the 21st Army Group, training in the United Kingdom for the assault upon North West Europe. For twenty-four hours Montgomery digested this news in solitude, considering carefully which of his officers he should take with him to these new fields of war. Above all he needed his Chief of Staff, Major-General de Guingand, with whom he had developed an almost paternal relationship. And there were others, the young ‘knights’, and his personal servants. These had made for him a kind of ‘home’, sitting round his ‘camp fire’, warming him with their admiration, and regaling him with their adventures.
