Helping Monty beat the Nazis (From Tewkesbury Admag)

Helping Monty beat the Nazis

THE life of the legendary Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery who helped lead the Allies to victory in the Second World War will be told in a new book called Watching Monty.

One of the men closest to Monty was Sir Carol Mather of Lower Oddington, who wrote the foreword to the book.

The 86-year-old, who lives in the village near Moreton, was given the honour of writing the foreword because he was the general's liaison officer when Monty commanded Britain's victorious forces at the Battle of Alamein, in North Africa, during 1942 and the invasion in Europe in 1944-45.

The book is based on diaries kept by Monty's aide-de-camp, Johnny Henderson during the war.

Mr Henderson, who once saved Cheltenham Racecourse from closure, and in turn helped the survival of other racecourses including Aintree, co-wrote the book with journalist Jeremy Douglas-Home. Sir Carol was asked to look over the book to check the account was accurate.

He said: "I knew all the personalities after working alongside Monty. It was my job to give him a personal view and to let him know what was happening on the ground. The book is a very interesting account with a collection of pictures that even I had not seen before. I've put together the foreword and did some minor editing, putting names to faces in photographs."

Sir Carol, a distant relative, who remembers meeting Monty as a child, was recruited to the Welsh Guards at the war's outbreak in 1939. He fought as an infantryman in the Middle East before participating in desert operations with the Commandos and then the Special Air Service.

Monty, who remembered Sir Carol, invited him to become his liaison officer at Alamein.

Sir Carol said: "Contrary to what some people thought of Monty, he had a very good sense of humour and we developed a very good rapport. He was a very easy man to work with once he got to know and trust you."

Sir Carol, who rejoined the SAS after Alamein, was a prisoner of war in Italy after being captured in Libya.

Among 500 prisoners released when Italy sued for an armistice, he and a comrade sneaked home through German lines.

Monty asked him to return as his liaison officer for the European invasion in 1944.

He was invalided home after being wounded when a German fighter plane attacked an aircraft he was travelling aboard with another officer. Their pilot was killed but they managed to crash-land the aircraft, even though neither had flown a plane before.

Leaving the Army as a Lieutenant-Colonel, Sir Carol served as MP for Esher, Surrey, for 17 years before retiring in 1987.