page_title: Gerald Templer
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: Gerald Templer / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: English: The British Army in the United Kingdom 1939-45 General Bernard Montgomery, commanding 5th Corps, inspecting men of the 7th Battalion, the Suffolk Regiment, at Sandbanks near Poole, 22 March 1941.
context_page_description: Field Marshal Sir Gerald Walter Robert Templer, KG, GCB, GCMG, KBE, DSO was a senior British Army officer who fought in both the world wars. He is best known for his defeat of the guerrilla rebels in Malaya between 1952 and 1954. As Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the professional head of the British Army, from 1955–58, he was Prime Minister Anthony Eden's chief military adviser during the Suez Crisis.
context_section_description: At the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 Templer was an acting lieutenant-colonel, and, on 4 September, the day after war was declared, he was chosen to be one of two GSO1s to the DMI of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), Major-General Noel Mason-MacFarlane, replacing the original choice, Kenneth Strong. He soon found himself in France. Templer's duties were mainly concerned with counter-intelligence and security. The German Army attacked in the West on 10 May 1940, although Templer himself was then on leave but was back in France and discovered Mason-MacFarlane was in Brussels, with the intelligence staff moving behind him but was a long distance from GHQ BEF, resulting in poor communications. On 17 May General Lord Gort, the BEF's Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C), feared for the BEF's right flank along the River Scarpe and, due to a shortage of troops, ordered Mason-MacFarlane to form "Macforce" to hold the river with whatever troops could be found. Templer subsequently became GSO1 of "Macforce". The only unit of any size then available was Brigadier John Smyth's 127th Brigade, detached from its parent 42nd Division, which was soon strengthened by armoured cars of Lieutenant-Colonel George Hopkinson's "Hopkinson Mission", and some scattered artillery and engineer units. The 127th Brigade was soon replaced by the 139th Brigade (also detached its parent 46th Division) and "Macforce" continued taking on scattered units and, after a few small skirmishes but no major engagements, was eventually disbanded. With the BEF retreating to Dunkirk, both Mason-MacFarlane and Templer were evacuated to England, arriving there on 27 May.
  Soon after returning to England Templer was, in mid-June, ordered to Chichester to raise the 9th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment, one of many then being raised in the aftermath of Dunkirk. The battalion was to be based around a small cadre of Regular soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Sussex who, like Templer, had recently returned from France, and the rest of the battalion was to consist of newly called up conscripts, most of whom were in their late twenties with no previous military experience. The battalion moved to Ross-on-Wye soon after its official formation on 4 July 1940. The task was made more difficult by the lack of rifles and other necessary equipment but Templer tried his best to train his men instil in them a regimental pride.
  In early November he was given the command of the 210th Independent Infantry Brigade (Home), composed of five battalions, all less than six months old, in Dorset, with responsibility for the defence of the coast in the event of a German invasion between Lyme Regis to Poole. The brigade was then serving under V Corps, commanded by Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery, one of Templer's instructors at the Staff College, who thought highly of him and the two, who shared similar outlooks on training and waging war, established a close working relationship. Captain Michael Joseph, a company commander in the 9th Battalion, Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment, part of the 210th Brigade, claimed Templer "understood the difficulties and the problems of the platoon commander, which is more than can be said of some others". Work on the beach defences combined with training and continued throughout the winter and into the spring, and in late April 1941 the brigade, now with a slightly different composition, came under the command of the Dorset County Division, one of the newly created British County Divisions formed specifically for static defence. However, on 7 April Montgomery was promoted to the command of XII Corps in Kent and Sussex and recommended to the War Office that Templer be the Brigadier General Staff (BGS) of V Corps, which now came under the command of Lieutenant-General Edmond Schreiber. Like Montgomery, Schreiber formed a high opinion of Templer and they got along well together. The summer was spent mainly on numerous exercises. In early March 1942 Schreiber was promoted to command of "Force 110", later redesignated as the First Army
caption: Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery inspecting men of the 7th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment, at Sandbanks near Poole, 22 March 1941. Also pictured, to his right wearing a peaked cap, is Brigadier Gerald Templer.
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