James Cassels (British Army officer)
Mentioned in Despatches Legion of Merit (United States) Commander of the Order of the Defender of the Realm (Malaysia)[1] | |
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Relations | Sir Robert Cassels (father) |
Cassels served in the
Cassels went on to be commander, Northern Army Group, then General Officer Commanding Eastern Command and then Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). As Chief of the General Staff, he advised the British government on the implementation of the 1966 Defence White Paper.
Early life and military career
James Cassels was born in Quetta, British India (now Pakistan), on 28 February 1907, the son of Robert Cassels (later General Sir Robert Cassels), a British Indian Army officer, and Florence Emily Cassels (née Jackson).[2] Upon being sent to England, he was educated at Rugby School and, later, at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, where he won the Sword of Honour.[3] Upon Passing out from Sandhurst, Cassels was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Seaforth Highlanders, a line infantry regiment of the British Army, on 30 August 1926.[4] He was posted to Central India with the 2nd Battalion of his regiment in 1928 and, having been promoted to lieutenant on 20 August 1929, was appointed aide-de-camp (ADC) to his father in May 1930.[5] He became adjutant of the 2nd Battalion, Seaforths, then serving in England and commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Laurie, who would feature numerous times in his career, in March 1934 and was promoted to captain on 22 March 1938.[5]
Cricket career
Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Full name | Archibald James Halkett Cassels | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Batting | Right-handed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bowling | Right-arm fast-medium/Off spin | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Role | All-rounder | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Domestic team information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Years | Team | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1932–1935 | Army | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1932 | Viceroy's XI | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1928 | Punjab Governor's XI | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1928 | Europeans (Lahore) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
First-class debut | 17 March 1928 Europeans v Hindus | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Last First-class | 1 June 1935 Army v Cambridge University | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Career statistics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: CricketArchive, 31 May 2008 |
A right-handed
His first recorded match came in 1921 when he played for his school team against
He played his next first-class match in Delhi in February 1932, playing for a Viceroy's XI against the Roshanara Club. He played his first first-class match in England that June, playing for the British Army cricket team against the RAF at The Oval,[7] making his highest first-class score of 72.[11] The following year he played for the Egyptian national side against HM Martineau's XI in Alexandria, taking five wickets in the second innings of the visitors.[12]
He played his final first-class match in the 1935 English season, playing for the Army against Cambridge University.[7] He continued to play cricket at a lower level, playing for Delhi against Lord Tennyson's XI in 1938. After the war, he played twice for the Army against the Royal Navy, in 1948 and 1949, and against Cambridge University in 1949.[9]
Second World War
Service in Britain
Cassels served in the
He remained with the division until October 1941 when he became Deputy Director (Plans) at the War Office.[5] He returned to the 52nd Division in July 1942, where he became a General Staff Officer Grade 1 (GSO1) to Major General Sir John Laurie, the division's General Officer Commanding (GOC), who was replaced in September by Major General Neil Ritchie.[13] He remained with the 52nd Division until he received an active command in the shape of the 1st Battalion, Tyneside Scottish in January 1943.[14] The battalion was, along with the 10th and 11th Battalions of the Durham Light Infantry (DLI), part of the 70th Infantry Brigade of the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division, whose GOC was Major General Henry Curtis until he was succeeded in late April by Major General Evelyn Barker.[13] The division had been assigned a leading role in the invasion of Normandy, which was to take place in spring the following year, and training was extremely tough, conducted in Scotland. Cassels was promoted to major on 30 August 1943.[15] He was not destined to lead the battalion in action, however, as in January 1944 he was promoted to acting brigadier and became Brigadier General Staff (BGS) of XII Corps, serving again under Neil Ritchie, responsible for the planning for Operation Overlord, codename for the Allied invasion of Normandy.[5][13]
Northwest Europe
In late June Cassels was given command of the 152nd Infantry Brigade, one of three brigades forming part of the veteran 51st (Highland) Infantry Division – the others being 153rd and 154th. The division was then fighting in Normandy after having landed there earlier in the month shortly after D-Day on 6 June.[13] The division had, under Major General Douglas Wimberley, fought with distinction in North Africa and Sicily from 1942–43 as part of the British Eighth Army under General Sir Bernard Montgomery, and, by now a veteran formation, had been brought back to the United Kingdom by Montgomery, upon his promotion to command the 21st Army Group in December 1943, to spearhead the Normandy invasion. In France, however, the division, now commanded by Major General Charles Bullen-Smith and war-weary, had performed, Montgomery felt, very poorly.[13] In mid-July, shortly after Cassels took over command of the 152nd Brigade, Montgomery wrote to Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), the professional head of the British Army, and informed him that, in his opinion (but shared also by Lieutenant Generals John Crocker and Miles Dempsey, GOCs of I Corps and British Second Army respectively), the 51st Division was, under Bullen-Smith, not battleworthy and decided to replace him with Major General Thomas Rennie, who had served with the division in Africa and Sicily.[13]
Cassels's brigade fought briefly in
Alongside the 49th Division, the 51st Division, now serving under I Corps again, was assigned the task of capturing the French port of Le Havre. The attack, codenamed Operation Astonia, began on 10 September and, with Cassels' brigade having achieved all its objectives, the German garrison surrendered on 12 September.[16]
By October the division was on the Dutch border where, on 23 October, Operation Colin was launched. Cassels' brigade took the town of Vught and, by 31 October, had reached the river Maas, before going on to clear the area west of 's-Hertogenbosch. Finally, the brigade carried out an assault crossing of the Noorder canal and, apart from holding the line, was not involved in any further major actions for the rest of the year.[16]
In January 1945 the brigade was in the Ardennes forest, in February moving to the Reichswald forest where it was involved in Operation Veritable and, despite heavy fighting in terrible conditions, managed to clear the south-western edge of the forest.[16] The brigade, along with the rest of the division, now part of XXX Corps under Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks, had a short rest after this, and began training for their next assignment, Operation Plunder, an amphibious assault crossing of the river Rhine. The operation began on the night of 23 March 1945, with Cassels' brigade crossing the river the following day. On the same day, however, the division's GOC, Major General Rennie, was killed by mortar fire and replaced as GOC by Major General Gordon MacMillan, a highly experienced and competent commander, who had led Cassels's brigade in Sicily. Despite the loss of the GOC, the division, Cassels's brigade in particular, was involved in heavy fighting in an attempt to expand the bridgehead. The brigade then advanced across Germany, and was at Bremen by late April, with the end of World War II in Europe following shortly after.[16] For Cassels's leadership of the 152nd Brigade during the Normandy campaign, he was appointed a
Cassels was promoted to the rank of acting major general and appointed GOC of the 51st Division on 28 May 1945, taking over from Major General MacMillan.
Postwar
After the war he continued to command the 51st Division in Germany until March 1946 when he selected to command the 6th Airborne Division. The division, which had fought with distinction in Northwest Europe, was then serving in Palestine during the Palestine Emergency (for further information see 6th Airborne Division in Palestine).[20] Cassels's time there was not altogether happy. "I was in Palestine from March 1946 until the end of the year, ten hellish months. I got appallingly rude letters from America, saying that I was much worse than Hitler, addressed to me personally. We nearly had seizures every time we read a newspaper. The general line was that we were anti-semitic beasts and murderers. I don't think they realized that many of my men had parachuted into Normandy in June 1944. Large numbers of them were killed and wounded fighting to remove Hitler from the face of the earth."[21] "It did make one hopping mad to see some of the comments in the Press...denigrating all or most of our actions. They sat in comfort and safety in England while we lived in fairly uncomfortable conditions and under the continued...threat of being blown up!!"[22]
He relinquished command of the division to Major General
He was made GOC of the
He was also colonel of the Seaforth Highlanders (Ross-shire Buffs, The Duke of Albany's) from 15 March 1957[42] and Colonel Commandant of the Royal Military Police from 27 May 1957.[43] He was also a member of the Committee of the Marylebone Cricket Club.[2]
His interests included fishing, dance music, playing the guitar and the clarinet and playing various sports including cricket, polo and golf.[2] He died at Newmarket in Suffolk on 13 December 1996.[2]
Family
In 1935 he married Joyce Kirk; they had one son.[5] Following the death of his first wife, he married Joy Dickson in 1978.[41]
References
- ^ "Senarai Penuh Penerima Darjah Kebesaran, Bintang dan Pingat Persekutuan Tahun 1958" (PDF).
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/64054. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Heathcote 1999, p. 79.
- ^ "No. 33198". The London Gazette. 3 September 1926. p. 5766.
- ^ a b c d e f g Heathcote 1999, p. 80.
- ^ a b "CricketArchive profile". CricketArchive. Retrieved 27 December 2011.
- ^ a b c d "First-class matches played by Archibald Cassels". CricketArchive. Retrieved 27 December 2011.
- ^ "Teams played for by Archibals Cassels". CricketArchive. Retrieved 27 December 2011.
- ^ a b "Other matches played by Archibald Cassels". CricketArchive. Archived from the original on 17 October 2012. Retrieved 27 December 2011.
- ^ "Scorecard of Punjab Governor's XI v Northern India, 24 March 1938". CricketArchive. Retrieved 27 December 2011.
- ^ "Obituaries". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1998. Retrieved 27 December 2011.
- ^ "Scorecard of Egypt v HM Martineau's XI, 24 April 1933". CricketArchive. Retrieved 27 December 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Mead 2007, p. 93.
- ^ "Cassels Archibald James Halkett Lt-Col 36316 - 70 Brigade".
- ^ "No. 36153". The London Gazette (Supplement). 27 August 1943. p. 3880.
- ^ a b c d e f g Mead 2007, p. 94.
- ^ "No. 36720". The London Gazette (Supplement). 26 September 1944. p. 4473.
- ^ "No. 36850". The London Gazette (Supplement). 19 December 1944. p. 5854.
- ^ "No. 37340". The London Gazette (Supplement). 6 November 1945. p. 5447.
- ^ a b c Heathcote 1999, p. 81.
- ^ Bethell 1979, p. 240.
- ^ Charters 1989, p. 167.
- ^ "No. 38505". The London Gazette (Supplement). 7 January 1949. p. 124.
- ^ "No. 38217". The London Gazette (Supplement). 20 February 1948. p. 1417.
- ^ "No. 38270". The London Gazette (Supplement). 23 April 1948. p. 2585.
- ^ "No. 38545". The London Gazette (Supplement). 25 February 1949. p. 987.
- ^ "No. 38805". The London Gazette (Supplement). 6 January 1950. p. 99.
- ^ "No. 38797". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 1949. p. 3.
- ^ "No. 39646". The London Gazette. 16 September 1952. p. 4920.
- ^ "No. 39666". The London Gazette (Supplement). 7 October 1952. p. 5323.
- ^ "No. 39778". The London Gazette (Supplement). 13 February 1953. p. 967.
- ^ "No. 40106". The London Gazette (Supplement). 23 February 1954. p. 1145.
- ^ "No. 40326". The London Gazette (Supplement). 16 November 1954. p. 6479.
- ^ "No. 41191". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 October 1957. p. 5753.
- ^ "No. 41561". The London Gazette (Supplement). 28 November 1958. p. 7349.
- ^ "No. 41752". The London Gazette (Supplement). 26 June 1959. p. 4219.
- ^ "No. 41923". The London Gazette (Supplement). 5 January 1960. p. 249.
- ^ "No. 42231". The London Gazette (Supplement). 27 December 1960. p. 8891.
- ^ "No. 43018". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 May 1963. p. 4847.
- ^ "No. 43569". The London Gazette (Supplement). 5 February 1965. p. 1361.
- ^ a b Heathcote 1999, p. 82.
- ^ "No. 41007". The London Gazette (Supplement). 19 February 1957. p. 1195.
- ^ "No. 41034". The London Gazette (Supplement). 26 March 1957. p. 1948.
Further reading
- Obituary: Daily Telegraph 21 December 1996
- Bethell, Nicholas (1979). The Palestine Triangle: the Struggle for the Holy Land, 1935–48. New York: Putnam. ISBN 978-0-399-12398-6.
- Charters, David (1989). The British Army and Jewish insurgency in Palestine, 1945–47. London: Macmillan Press in association with King's College, London. ISBN 978-0-333-42278-6.
- Heathcote, Tony (1999). The British Field Marshals 1736–1997. Barnsley (UK): Pen & Sword. ISBN 0-85052-696-5.
- Mead, Richard (2007). Churchill's Lions: A Biographical Guide to the Key British Generals of World War II. Stroud (UK): Spellmount. p. 544 pages. ISBN 978-1-86227-431-0.
- Smart, Nick (2005). Biographical Dictionary of British Generals of the Second World War. ISBN 1844150496.