James Gammell


Sir James Andrew Harcourt Gammell was a British Army officer who fought during both World War I and World War II.

Early life and military career

Born in Edinburgh on 26 September 1892, the son of Sydney James and Alice Stobart, Gammell was educated at Winchester College, followed by the Pembroke College, Oxford, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Scottish Horse in January 1913. He transferred to the Royal Field Artillery on 5 August 1914, the day after Britain entered World War I. Gammell initially served with the 113th Battery of the 25th Brigade Royal Field Artillery, part of the 1st Division and was sent to France on 20 August as part of the British Expeditionary Force. In March 1915 he was awarded the Military Cross and, later in the year, fought in the Gallipoli Campaign, where he was twice mentioned in dispatches and, after this, he spent the rest of the war as a staff officer. He was posted to the HQ of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, initially as a General Staff Officer Grade 3, later as GSO2 before returning to France in the summer of 1918 and, finally, being sent to England where he was GSO2 at the War Office. By the end of the war Gammell was highly decorated; mentioned in dispatches seven times, twice awarded the MC, the first in 1915, and again in 1917, and gained the Distinguished Service Order in 1918.

Between the wars

Gammell remained in the army after the war and, a few months after the war ended, he was married, in June 1919, to Gertrude Don. They had four children; James Gilbert Sydney, the eldest, born on 4 March 1920, John Frederick followed, born on 31 December 1921, Mary Finella, born on 15 April 1924, and Elizabeth Alice, the youngest, born on 22 April 1926.
He later attended the Staff College, Camberley from 1921 to 1922. Among his many fellow students included Frank Roberts, Eric Costin, John Priestman, Merton Beckwith-Smith, Eric Miles, Austin Miller, John Kennedy John Kennedy, Giffard Martel, Ralph Eastwood, Edmund Osborne, Francis Nosworthy, Robert Naylor, Ernest Squires, Clifton Alban, Ridley Pakenham-Walsh and Edwin Morris. After serving as a GSO2 with Aldershot Command in 1924, followed by a promotion to major and a transfer to the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders in May 1927, he served with the 2nd Battalion, Camerons in Edinburgh, followed by a year with the 1st Battalion in Rangoon, Burma before returning to England and returning to the Staff College, Camberley, this time as a GSO2 with the rank of acting lieutenant colonel, a position he held for five years, from 1930–1935.
In May 1935 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and appointed Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders until 1938, when he attended the Imperial Defence College. This was followed by a promotion to the temporary rank of brigadier in December 1938, and he assumed command of the 4th Infantry Brigade, part of the 2nd Infantry Division, whose General Officer Commanding was then Major General Henry Maitland Wilson, who was later succeeded by Major General Charles Loyd. The brigade was stationed in Aldershot.

World War II

Shortly after the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 Gammell, along with his brigade, was deployed to France towards the end of the month, where it became part of the British Expeditionary Force. Unlike in World War I, where there was almost immediate action, the first few months of World War II where, for the Western Allies, relatively quiet, and no major actions took place, leading to this period of time becoming known as the "Phoney War". After his brigade spent the first few months of the war digging defensive positions in expectation of a repeat of the trench warfare of 1914–1918, in February 1940 Gammell returned to England, where he was given a new role as Chief of Staff of the newly created IV Corps, then commanded by Lieutenant General Claude Auchinleck, who noted that Gammell "worked like a slave" and that his "energy, determination and devotion to duty were remarkable", and then of Allied Forces Norway during the ill-fated Norwegian Campaign later that year.
In late June 1940, returning again to England, Gammell was given command of the 15th Infantry Brigade. The brigade had recently fought in Norway, and, despite having fought well, had sustained nearly 800 casualties and was evacuated in early May, and was then serving in Scotland under Scottish Command, awaiting the arrival of its parent formation, the 5th Infantry Division, under Major General Harold Franklyn, having been detached from the division in mid-April. The brigade returned to the division in early July, a month after the Dunkirk evacuation, and, with the rest of the 5th Division − containing Brigadier Miles Dempsey's 13th and Brigadier Montagu Stopford's 17th Infantry Brigades and supporting troops − commenced anti-invasion duties and concentrated on reforming and being brought up to strength again.
He was only to remain with the brigade for four weeks, however, as he soon received a promotion to major general, in late July, and became GOC 3rd Infantry Division, succeeding Major General Bernard Montgomery, who was being promoted to command V Corps. The 3rd Division, a Regular Army formation then stationed in Southern England under Southern Command, had recently fought in France and been evacuated at Dunkirk, but, due to the former GOC's ruthless training methods, the division had returned to England largely intact, suffering only relatively light casualties, although short of equipment. Comprising the 7th Guards Brigade and the 8th and 9th Infantry Brigades, along with divisional troops, the division was in reserve under GHQ Home Forces, held in readiness in a counterattack role in the event of a German invasion. Moving to the command of VIII Corps, under Lieutenant General Harold Franklyn, in early September, the division transferred to V Corps in late November, upon the request of the corps commander, Lieutenant General Montgomery. The division then spent most of 1941 under V Corps training in its counterattack role to repel an invasion.
In late November 1941, after handing over the 3rd Division to Major General Eric Hayes, Gammell moved on to be GOC XII Corps with the acting rank of lieutenant general, in December, again succeeding Bernard Montgomery, who was being promoted to command the South-Eastern Command and thought highly of his successor, believing Gammell to be "young and virile". Gammell's BGS was Dudley Ward and, like with the 3rd Division, XII Corps was concerned with the defence of Southern England, although the threat of invasion had much receded, and the corps, with the 43rd, 44th and 46th Infantry Divisions, along with several smaller units, under command, began training for offensive operations overseas, including in Exercise Tiger in May.
In September 1942, after handing over XII Corps to Lieutenant General Montagu Stopford, he then succeeded Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Eastern Command. For the rest of the year and throughout 1943 several large-scale exercises took place, most notably Exercise Spartan − the largest military exercise ever held in the United Kingdom − in March, where Gammell's Eastern Command, with Lieutenant General Gerard Bucknall's XI Corps and Lieutenant General Herbert Lumsden's VIII Corps under command, played the role of the "German Sixth Army" against Lieutenant General Andrew McNaughton's First Canadian Army, which in turn was playing the role of the British Second Army.
In early January 1944 Gammell handed over Eastern Command, again to Lieutenant General Sir Kenneth Anderson, and was appointed Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean, General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, which oversaw all operations in the Mediterranean theatre, in particular on the Italian Front which, by the time of Gammell's arrival, had bogged down. Wilson was replaced towards the end of the year by Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander.

Postwar

After the war he became Head of the British Military Mission to Moscow and retired from the army in May 1946.
He lived at Alrick in Glenisla. He was Deputy Lieutenant for Angus and, after the death of his first wife, Gertrude, in 1960, he was remarried four years later to Mary Kirkwood, daughter of a Royal Navy officer. Gammell himself died on 1 September 1975, just a few weeks short of his 83rd birthday, and was cremated, with his ashes buried at Alrick.