British officers don't duck!
Yes, well, that's what I'm going to be talking about in this video, which is sponsored by, yes, I know, I've got another sponsor,
it's extraordinary, isn't it? But true. Yes, this is sponsored by Audible.com, more of that later.
Now, there is a tradition in the British army, a proud one I think,
that the officers suffer higher casualty rates than the men.
And part of the reason that you might be proud of this as an officer corps,
is that it shows that you're leading from the front, and you're not putting yourself above the men.
And a lot of people who, for instance, buy into this "lions led by donkeys" argument,
which is commonly said about the British in World War One,
might be interested to learn that 60 British Generals died in action in World War One. Yes, 60 British Generals,
who were supposedly 5 miles behind the front swilling champagne in French châteaux,
no, no, they actually died with their men in action.
That wouldn't have happened if they'd not been putting themselves in harm's way.
And British officers went over the top in World War One wearing officer's uniform, with officer's caps,
and often carrying swagger sticks and riding crops and so forth that ... marked them out as officers,
and marked them out as targets for the enemy.
Now of course if you go back to the medieval period, I'm sure that pretty much all
knights of all nations liked to put their heraldry where everyone could see it,
and ... show to the eyes of both armies how much danger they were putting themselves in,
how brave and wonderful they were being.
And I have no reason to believe that British knights, on this score, behaved any differently from anyone else.
And I don't know quite how far back this tradition in the British army goes,
but it does seem to go back at least as far as the Napoleonic Wars.
And one of the pieces of evidence I have is that they kept issuing orders for officers,
"Could you please desist from holding meetings within clear sight of, and range of, the enemy."
Well, if orders like that were being issued then presumably it was a problem,
this was something that was actually happening.
But I say "a problem". There are of course lots of good reasons you might
want your officers to stroll around heads high under fire.
Now when Winston Churchill went over the top, as he did a few times in World War One,
he is supposed to have said, "It's no use ducking, the bullets have already passed you."
Actually he probably didn't say it quite like that because he ... wasn't that old at that stage, it was 1915 or so.
Also in 1915, the 5th Earl of Longford, who was a Brigadier-General in command at Gallipoli,
... supposedly he said this particularly famous quote on the topic,
"And don't bother ducking, the men don't like it, and it doesn't do any good."
Admittedly his body was never found.
We don't know that he was shot shortly after saying that.
Some versions of the anecdote have that, but I think they're just taking an ironic opportunity there.
He is supposed to have said that, and he died during the battle.
But why would he say that? "It doesn't do any good, and the men don't like it."
Well, does it do any good? Well if you are actually in the open and there's no cover around,
whether you're standing like this or this doesn't really make a huge amount of difference between
your likelihood of being shot and not being shot.
Obviously if there's a wall that's this height, then ducking behind it could make a big difference.
But if you're standing in the open then walking forwards like this against someone who's deliberately aiming at you
with an accurate rifle, it's not really going to make a huge amount of difference.
"The men don't like it." Well, why wouldn't they like it?
Well, imagine if you're going forwards and you can see that your officer is cringing and flinching,
and all the other officers down the line of the other units they're all head up and bold and upright.
You might think possibly that your officer isn't perhaps made of the good stuff,
and that, "Oh no, I'm in a unit with this guy." And it will harm your morale, the men don't like it.
They want to, perhaps, see that you are unafraid, and you can lead by example, you lead from the front.
And even if you do get shot, you've shown that you were brave and you got shot.
And you shared the risk with your men, and some [men perhaps might] want to avenge you.
There are a number of times I've read of officers being killed and
the men under that officer getting absolutely furious because they loved that officer,
and storming forwards and defeating the enemy as a result of their officer's death.
So, even the officer being shot, if he was walking boldly before,
it does actually have some military purpose. Perhaps.
But whose word should we take for it? For instance Lord Raglan, a legendary figure.
Now he, when he was commanding at the Battle of Alma, which was the first really big battle of the Crimean War,
he pretty much excelled himself when it came to nonchalance under fire.
Because he saw a handy prominence, and he took himself and his staff up there to watch the battle from there.
And he watched the British attack through his field glasses, sitting on his horse, coming towards him.
Yes, that's right, coming towards him.
Because he'd picked a spot that was behind enemy lines, and within 100 yards of the nearest Russians.
He got away with it.
And in fact it did serve some military purpose, because he suggested it was a good place to put some cannon
because there are some Russian guns down there. And taking it as an order,
someone went off and brought up some cannon, and, yep, they saw off the Russian guns.
But, maybe we shouldn't put too much faith in tales of people like Lord Raglan,
because they're semi-legendary figures, very, very high commanders,
and loads of people would perhaps have a vested interest in making him seem more brave than possibly he was.
So whom should we trust?
Well, the more modern the author you might say, World War One and World War Two,
those accounts are perhaps more reliable than ones further back in time.
But perhaps we should believe someone who's writing not as an officer,
and not about someone else he knew, but as an ordinary trooper just talking about a commander he saw.
So if you look at a war memoir from World War Two, for instance,
written by an ordinary trooper describing this sort of behaviour, that would be quite convincing evidence.
And we have that. For instance,
there's this wonderful book by John Foley, "Mailed Fist", which I've referred to before.
And he has a couple of anecdotes, and I'm just going to read this quote here.
So ... at this point they're in the middle of a battle.
"We pulled into the buildings with them, and I looked around for the company commander.
He was walking along a bit of a road quietly smoking his pipe,
with his little cane and his red hackle on the side of his cap.
He might well have been out for a Sunday morning stroll down Aldershot High Street,
except that vicious little spurts of dust were cracking about his heels.
He raised his stick in greeting when he saw 5 Troop and, completely indifferent to the bullets kicking up the dirt around him,
he strolled across to Avenger and swung up to the turret.
'Going very well so far,' he said pleasantly, 'how's your funny boys getting on with the breaching of that minefield?'
'They're all bogged,' I said gloomily. 'Ah, look here, aren't you being shot at?'
'Oh, never mind that,' he said, 'it has just got nuisance value. Well, it's a pity you can't get across that minefield,
it looks like we'll have to go on without you.' 'Balls,' I said, and hastily added, 'Sir.'
Because he was after all the Major, even though it looked to me as though he would soon be a dead one.
Well, that's what he said at that point. And at another point
he's talking about his operations when they were trying to take Le Havre off the Germans.
And things had gone very well, and they'd rolled forward and destroyed lots of machine gun nests,
and taken out lots of anti-tank guns and so forth. And he opened his turret and popped out,
and saw an infantry commander strolling along nonchalantly, pretty much in that same sort of way, over towards him.
And they discussed how things had gone very well, and the infantry commander said,
"Yes, there's only one thing I'm still a bit worried about, do you see that stone house over there?"
At that moment a shot rings out from that house,
and our man, John Foley, collapses down into the turret his face covered in blood.
His crew is almost panic stricken, "My goodness, where are you hit, sir? Where are you hit?"
- "I don't know, I don't know. You can see, where am I hit?" - "I don't know, I can't see a wound."
They're wiping away the blood and they can't find a wound.
And he realises, "Oh, I don't seem to be in all that much pain, and, oh, it seems to have stopped bleeding."
Even though his face was completely covered in blood, anyway, he ...
"Where did this come from, Sir?" one of the crewmen said.
And he weakly pointed in the direction of the stone house, and they swung the turret round,
and started using the BESA machine gun to brass up the stone house. Da-da-da-da.
Anyway, after a while he crawls back up out of the turret,
and there, still, is the company commander, who'd just been standing bolt upright waiting next to ... the tank for him,
And he says, "All right. Yeah, I see what happened here."
And he indicates that the hatch that was in front of John Foley's head
has a little shiny patch on the edge of it. The bullet had missed his head by a few inches
and had hit the edge of the hatch, and had shattered into a thousand little pieces
that he found next time he shaved, loads of little bits of lead.
And these had caused a great sheet of blood to appear, but no deep disabling wound.
Anyway, so the man is saying, "Yes, yes, funny things snipers,
he had all of me to aim at, but still took a pop at your head.
Anyway, yes, that's the stone house I meant."
And this behaviour I have read in so many war memoirs.
This is Ken Tout's utterly superb "Tank!", in which he says,
"As they bumble through their jokes, and just stay awake,
more mortar bombs bracket the tank, keeping me more than awake.
Get down inside the tank, cosy safety of thick steel walls.
My eyes are heavy when I need to be able to pierce every leafy bush and hedgerow to spot tanks, men, guns.
I am weary to the point of despair.
And then I see Major Bevan taking an afternoon stroll. Am I seeing things? Have I gone round the bend?
Hank, out for a stroll in a thunderstorm of battle whose rain is jagged iron splinters,
whose lightning strikes again and again at the same places,
whose thunder continues, peal overlaid on peal.
Tall, lean, languid, he ambles along the verge of the vegetable field swishing his riding crop at tall weeds.
He pauses, and he waves his riding crop at a thicket about 50 yards away from us.
Presumably another of our Shermans is nestled there, invisible to us.
For miles around everyone has gone to ground: German grenadiers, Black Watch in their foxholes,
Yeomanry inside their tanks, artillery in their gun pits.
But Major Bevan chooses to walk above the earth.
He's wearing the normal officer's cap (as opposed to the beret which most of us wear),
a khaki shirt, a cloth crown on each epaulette, and an old loose pair of corduroys.
[Moaning] Minnies fall a hundred yards behind him, but he continues his stroll towards us without haste.
At the gap in the hedge to our rear, which is our escape route,
he pauses again, then changes direction and walks across to Stony Stratford.
He looks critically at the burnt camouflage branches still adorning the tank beneath Bookie's green fresh decorations,
flicks away a dead branch with his riding crop.
I give him a rather sketchy salute, he touches his cap with his riding crop in a familiar gesture,
gives Stoney Stratford a friendly wallop across the rump as though she were a horse,
screws his face into a combination of a grin and a wink,
then continues his ramble back through the hedge.
I see his cap beyond thinner patches of hedge as he strolls along the cart track,
which is the focus of our World War at this moment.
Sporadic explosions continue as he turns and heads back up the slope, still at the same Sunday afternoon pace,
towards where HQF must presumably be.
I no longer contemplate diving for refuge inside the turret.
If David Bevan can saunter coolly across the field of fire, well, then I can stand up in my tank and keep a clear watch."
So it seems that these ordinary troopers were indeed inspired by the nonchalant bravery of their officers.
When Dickie Attenborough was directing the film "A Bridge Too Far",
which incidentally I would definitely recommend, it's so epic, and it stars every top male star of the era.
And ... one of the things which is so impressive about it, is that it's before CGI.
So when you see thousands of parachutes in the air, coming towards the ground,
... that's actually because they had thousands of parachutes in the air, with men jumping out of Dakotas.
And when you see fighter bombers swooping very low to the ground and massive explosions
and loads of tanks and loads of troops running everywhere all in one shot,
that's because they actually had big explosions and swooping aircraft
and all those tanks and all those men all in one shot.
It's not CGI, they didn't add the explosions and the swooping aircraft on later,
it's all actually there happening in front of you.
And this was also shot quite a long time ago when there were still quite a lot of the uniforms,
and the tanks, or at least similar tanks, still around.
So there you go, an epic film. And I've somewhat got sidetracked ... oh yes, I remember, yes.
So there's a character played by Tony Hopkins,
Lieutenant-Colonel Frost, who was on the bridge at Arnhem.
And the actual man himself was one of the historical advisers of the film,
and he was absolutely shocked when he saw Tony Hopkins rushing across the street ducking and
diving and flinching at all the bullets being fired at him. "Oh, no, no, no, no," he said to Dickie Attenborough,
"No, no, no, no, no. No British officer walks like that. No, no, no. A British officer
head up, eyes forward, strolls calmly, it's a good example to the men."
Well Dickie Attenborough didn't exactly disbelieve him,
but thought that perhaps the audience for the film would disbelieve him,
and so felt it was better to have Tony Hopkins just still doing all the ducking and weaving.
And yes, anyway, so ... Cornelius Ryan wrote the book, "A Bridge Too Far". Yes.
It's not a perfect film. Why did they not manage to persuade Robert Redford to have a decent haircut?
But there you go, he was a very vain man it seems.
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Now, maybe I should come right up to date. ...
Now this is a book written ... well, quite recently. And it's talking about 2007 Afghanistan.
It's Patrick Hennessey's "The Junior Officers' Reading Club", and I really did like this book.
It's very, very good about the psychology of war, what soldiers are thinking and feeling.
It's very good on that. I found it actually very disappointing and frustrating in that
whenever he's describing a fight [involving] his men, his platoon and so forth,
he never really tells you exactly what's going on, what orders he gives,
the actual tactics, the actual how they went about the fighting bit.
But on the psychology of war it's very, very good. Anyway, I was very amused by this anecdote.
They're in a very dangerous position. They're on top of a house, there are Taliban all around
shooting at them from all directions for day after day, and he's with this guy called Sherlock.
"Now I had it, was in the middle of it, and ... all I could see was Sherlock standing over me.
As time slowed with the deafening surprise of his latest burst in a picture of Brecon nightmare:
no helmet, no body armour, standing upright on the roof, silhouetted against the 'lum' (illumination),
still popping up with his rifle jammed into his hip with one hand, loosing huge bursts of automatic,
whilst lighting a fag with the other."
(Fag, British slang for cigarette.)
"Fucking hell, Sherlock!
Even as I'd interjected it as much for the deafening as the wanton affront to all that the British army held dear,
and he looked down at me apologetically and dropped to the floor, as if just realising his slackness,
and then fished out another fag.
'Oh, sorry sir, I should have offered.' "
[ Another thing that British officers do not do is say "push-ups" when they mean press-ups. ]
Lindybeige!
[ Also, no shilly-shallying, no wearing standard uniform, no over-statement, and no going native. ]