Field Marshal
Bernard Law Montgomery
Jan Hyrman
Born on 17th November, 1887, twice wounded in WWI, Montgomery was already known as a man of strong will, vigorous efficiency and sharp intelligence, when he entered the Second World War as the commander of the 3rd Division, which he led in France during the 1940 campaign.

During Operation Dynamo, the dramatic retreat from the besieged French port of Dunkirk, which followed the unfortunate campaign, Montgomery was one of the last to leave the heavily bombed town. On his arrival back to Britain, he was promoted to command the area of southeast England, facing the imminent threat of German invasion.

Another change came in August 1942, when Churchill appointed him commander of the British 8th Army in North Africa instead of the Prime Minister's original
Field Marshal Montgomery and a hearty handshake with Eisenhower
On the 1st August, 1944, he took the command of the 21st Army Group, composed of British and Canadian units. After the allegedly overcautious capture of the French town of Caen, his troops thrust northwest. On 17th September 1944, Operation Market Garden was launched with the object of securing the crossings over the Maas, the Waal and the Lower Rhine, and thus gaining a premature entry into the north German plain before winter. The fierce German counterattacks at Arnhem left the British only with one end of a single bridge captured, from which they had to retreat into the already consolidated area of American landings at Nijmegen and Eindhoven.

During the Battle of the Bulge, the German assault through the Ardennes in Belgium, an attempt to split the British from the American armies and capture Antwerp, Montgomery was given temporary command of the American forces on the northern flank of the bulge. From there, he led the Group to victory across Belgium, the Netherlands, and northern Germany, receiving the surrender of German northern armies on May 4, 1945, on Lüneburg Heath.

Bernard Law Montgomery was first knighted in 1942 (Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, K.C.B.). He was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal in 1944. Following World War II, from 1945 to 1946 he commanded the British occupation force in Germany. In 1946 he was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter (K.G.) and was created 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. That year, he became chief of the imperial general staff. In 1948 he became chairman of the commanders-in-chief under the permanent defense organisation of Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. From 1951 to 1958 he was deputy supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe.

Field Marshal Montgomery died in Alton in Hampshire on 24th March, 1976.
Montgomery and General Alexander
choice, "Strafer" Gott, who had been accidentally killed.

Erwin Rommel, the infamous German general, had been pushing hard to capture the port of Alexandria, as his supply lines had been going far too long. In the Battle of Alam Halfa, 31th August to 7th September, Montgomery repulsed this thrust and accomplished the difficult task of restoring the morale and strength of the British troops. The North African campaign climaxed in the Battle of el-Alamein begun on 23rd October 1942, from where Rommel's Afrikakorps was driven 3,200 kilometres towards Tunis. Montgomery won the first great British victory of the war and the last one won alone.
Thereafter Montgomery operated along with the Americans during the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, leading his troops up the east coast of Italy. In 1944, he was recalled to Britain to lead initial assault of the Allied ground forces on France in Operation Overlord, the plans of which he reviewed and expanded.
Pictures were taken from a Czechoslovak publication Od Dunkirku az po den (From Dunkirk to D-Day), published by the British Department of Information, London, 1945.
Montgomery accompanying Prime Minister Winston Churchill