Frederick E . Morgan Lieutenant - General Sir Frederick Edgeworth Morgan KCB ( 5 February 1894 – 19 March 1967 ) was a British Army officer who fought in both world wars . He is best known as the Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander ( COSSAC ) , the original planner of Operation Overlord . A graduate of the Royal Military Academy , Woolwich , Morgan was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery in 1913 . During the First World War he served on the Western Front as an artillery subaltern and staff officer . Afterwards he served two long tours with the British Army in India . Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 , Morgan was promoted to brigadier and assumed command of the 1st Support Group of the 1st Armoured Division , which he led during the Battle of France . In May 1942 he was became a lieutenant - general and given command of the I Corps . Morgan ' s headquarters was designated Force 125 , and given the task of dealing with a German thrust through Spain to Gibraltar that never occurred . In March 1943 he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander ( Designate ) , or COSSAC . As COSSAC he directed the planning for Operation Overlord . When General Dwight Eisenhower became Supreme Allied Commander , Major General Bedell Smith became Chief of Staff at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force ( SHAEF ) , while Morgan became Deputy Chief of Staff . After the war , Morgan served as Chief of Operations for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration ( UNRRA ) in Germany until his position in Germany was eliminated following publication of " off the record " comments concerning incompetence and corruption within UNRRA , including diverting the resources of UNRRA to the support of Zionist ambitions to further political ambitions . In 1951 , Morgan became Controller of Atomic Energy , and was present for Operation Hurricane , the first British atomic weapons tests at the Montebello Islands in 1952 . His position was abolished in 1954 with the creation of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority but he remained as Controller of Nuclear Weapons until 1956 . Early life . Morgan was born in Paddock Wood , Kent on 5 February 1894 , the eldest son among nine children of Frederick Beverley Morgan , a timber importer , and his wife Clare Elizabeth née Horrocks . He commenced his education at Hurstleigh , a private school in Tunbridge Wells in 1902 . At an early age it was decided that Frederick would become a British Army officer , and in 1907 he entered Clifton College , a school noted for its connections with the Royal Military Academy , Woolwich . At Clifton he played rugby and cricket , and served in the School Cadet Corps , which became the Officers ' Training Corps in 1908 . As a cadet sergeant , he was one of many who lined the route to Buckingham Palace for the Coronation of George V of the United Kingdom in 1911 . He eventually rose to the rank of second lieutenant . Morgan duly passed the entrance examination for Woolwich , which he entered in 1912 . Morgan was commissioned second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 17 July 1913 , and joined 41st Battery , 42nd Brigade , Royal Field Artillery at Aldershot . He volunteered for service in India , and in January 1914 departed on the British - India Steam Navigation Company troopship " Rewa " , joining the 84th Battery , 11th Brigade , Royal Field Artillery , which was stationed in Jabalpur . First World War . Following the outbreak of the First World War , Morgan ' s battery departed for the Western Front in October 1914 as part of the 3rd ( Lahore ) Division . Morgan suffered a near - miss from a German 5 . 9 - inch gun which blew him into the air and buried him in a shell hole , and he was evacuated to hospital in Boulogne with shell shock . He was granted a short sick leave in England only to be present when news reached his family that his brother had been killed in action . On returning to the front , Morgan became aide - de - camp to Brigadier General Edward Spencer Hoare - Nairne , the commander of the Lahore Divisional Artillery . The artillery remained on the Western Front when the bulk of the division departed for the Mesopotamian campaign . As it took longer to train artillery than infantry , the Lahore divisional artillery acted in turn as the artillery of the 2nd Canadian Division , 3rd Canadian Division , 4th Australian Division and finally the 4th Canadian Division until their own artillery was sufficiently trained to take over . Morgan became a staff captain in February 1916 , and was promoted to the temporary rank of captain in May 1916 . The Lahore divisional artillery was broken up in mid - 1917 and Morgan was posted to the 42nd ( East Lancashire ) Division as a staff captain . On 15 August 1917 , he married Marjorie Cecile Whaite , the daughter of Colonel Thomas du Bédat Whaite of the Royal Army Medical Corps . The couple had met on board the " Rewa " en route to India in 1914 . Their marriage produced two daughters and a son . During the Hundred Days Offensive he served as brigade major of the 42nd Divisional Artillery . During the war he was twice mentioned in dispatches , on 15 May 1917 , and again on 5 July 1919 . Between the wars . In 1919 , Morgan volunteered for a six - year tour of India and joined the 118th Field Battery , 26th Field Brigade , at Deepcut , where it was forming and training for service in the subcontinent . Later that year the brigade moved to its new station at Jhansi . After three years Morgan was posted to Attock , where he commanded the Divisional Ammunition Column . In 1924 he accepted a temporary staff posting as Deputy Assistant Adjutant - General ( DAAG ) of Major - General Sir Herbert Uniacke ' s 1st ( Peshawar ) Division at Murree . This was followed in 1925 by a year ' s secondment to the headquarters of Lieutenant - General Sir Claud Jacob ' s Northern Command , where Morgan helped plan and direct large - scale manoeuvres . Morgan returned to England in 1926 , and assumed command of the 22nd Heavy Battery . Equipped with a mixture of 9 . 2 inch guns , 6 inch guns , 12 pounders and 6 pounders , it was responsible for the coastal defences of Weymouth , Dorset . Still a captain , Morgan hoped that his next career move would be to attend the Staff College , Camberley , having narrowly passed the entrance examination . Instead , he was offered a place at the Staff College , Quetta , requiring a return trip to India . Morgan ' s classmates at Quetta in 1927 and 1928 included William Slim , John Crocker , Kenneth Anderson , David Cowan , George Alan Vasey and Tommy Burns . After graduation , Morgan was posted to the 70th Field Battery at Lucknow , and then was artillery staff officer at headquarters Western Command , under Brigadier Henry Karslake . When Karslake became Major - General , Royal Artillery , at GHQ India in 1931 , he brought Morgan to Delhi to serve with him as General Staff Officer ( Grade 2 ) . Morgan was finally promoted major in 1932 and brevet lieutenant - colonel in 1934 . Returning to England in 1934 , Morgan assumed command of the 4th Anti - Aircraft Battery , which was deployed to Malta during the diplomatic crisis that accompanied the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 . He served in the War Office from 1936 to 1938 . Here he became increasingly disturbed at the lack of urgency that the government displayed in the face of a war that Morgan and his fellow staff officers felt was inevitable and imminent . That year he was promoted colonel and became General Staff Officer ( Grade 1 ) of the 3rd Division , in which Brigadier Bernard Montgomery commanded a brigade . Second World War . Battle of France . In 1939 , Morgan was promoted brigadier and assumed command of the 1st Support Group of the 1st Armoured Division . When the 1st Support Group was shipped to France in May 1940 , following the outbreak of the Second World War , it had already been stripped of its two field artillery regiments and two infantry battalions . As a result , Morgan ' s command included only a force of Royal Engineers and a Territorial battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers , which was in the process of converting to an anti - aircraft / anti - tank regiment and armed only with antitank guns . His group was in no position to fulfill its normal role supporting the division ' s armoured brigades and so was sent to reinforce 51st ( Highland ) Division south of the river Somme . During a confused retreat most of the Support Group was captured along with the 51st Division at Saint - Valery - en - Caux but the remainder , including Morgan , got away and were evacuated to England . The 1st Armoured Division was subsequently reformed , and became a mobile reserve in south eastern England . It was tasked with counterattacking an invading German army , and the 1st Support Group was given two Canadian infantry battalions for this purpose . In November 1940 Morgan was appointed Brigadier General Staff at II Corps , based in Norfolk . Morgan was promoted major - general in 1941 and given command of the Devon and Cornwall County Division , a static formation created for coastal defence . In October he assumed command of the 55th ( West Lancashire ) Infantry Division , a second line territorial formation . In May 1942 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant - general and given command of the I Corps District , which included Lincolnshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire . In October of that year his headquarters became a mobile formation , was redesignated I Corps and placed under Lieutenant General Dwight D . Eisenhower . Morgan ' s corps headquarters was designated Force 125 . It was given command of the 1st and 4th Division s , and the task of dealing with a German thrust through Spain to Gibraltar . This operation proved unnecessary , and Morgan ' s two divisions were sent to North Africa , while he was directed to plan the invasion of Sardinia . In time this was abandoned in favour of the Allied invasion of Sicily . I Corps headquarters remained in the United Kingdom the whole time , located at 1 Cumberland near Marble Arch , with the headquarters mess in the Lyons Marble Arch Corner House . However , it gained considerable experience in operational planning . Morgan was appointed a Commander of the Order of the Bath on 2 June 1943 . COSSAC . At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 , the Combined Chiefs of Staff agreed to establish a staff to plan operations in north west Europe in 1944 . It was envisaged that the Supreme Allied Commander would be British , and the usual practice was for the commander and the chief of staff to be of the same nationality , so it was decided to appoint a British officer for the role of Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander ( Designate ) ( COSSAC ) , with an American deputy . In March 1943 Morgan became COSSAC . Brigadier General Ray Barker became his American deputy . Initially , Morgan ' s staff consisted of an aide , two batmen and a driver with a car purloined from I Corps headquarters . Morgan established his headquarters in Norfolk House at 31 St James ' s Square . However , by October 1943 , it was clearly too small for COSSAC needs , which called for accommodation for a staff of 320 officers and 600 other ranks . In November and December part of the staff moved to the South Rotunda , a bombproof structure that had originally been fitted up as an anti - invasion base , which was connected to the various ministries by the Whitehall Tunnel . Other staff were accommodated at 80 Pall Mall . COSSAC was charged with planning three operations : Operation Cockade , a deception operation to keep German forces pinned to the coast ; Operation Rankin , a plan for measures to be taken in the case of a sudden German collapse ; and Operation Overlord , a plan for a full - scale assault on north western Europe . Morgan and his staff worked on the Overlord plan throughout June and the first half of July 1943 . He presented it to the Chiefs of Staff Committee on 15 July . The plan set forth in detail the conditions under which the assault could be made , the area where a landing would be feasible , and the means by which a lodgement on the continent would be developed . On 28 July , a group of the COSSAC staff , headed by Barker , travelled to Washington D . C . to present the Overlord plan to the U . S . Joint Chiefs of Staff , and to confer with the U . S . War Department about the troop basis for the operation and issues related to its civil affairs and logistics aspects . Missions were also exchanged with Eisenhower ' s Allied Force Headquarters in Algiers to coordinate the plans of offensive action in the Mediterranean and north western Europe in 1944 . In October and November , Morgan went to Washington , to discuss the operation with the Combined Chiefs of Staff , accompanied only by Major General Nevil Brownjohn and an aide . Morgan met with General George Marshall , who instructed him to proceed with planning on the basis that Marshall would be Supreme Allied Commander and Morgan his chief of staff . Morgan met with President Franklin D . Roosevelt at the White House . Roosevelt turned down Morgan ' s request for the services of Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle , Jr . to assist with civil affairs , and also cast doubt on whether Marshall could be spared to become Supreme Allied Commander . While in the United States Morgan visited the Gettysburg Battlefield and the training camps at Camp Carrabelle , Fort Benning , Camp Mackall and Fort Bragg . The Combined Chiefs of Staff authorised Morgan to issue orders in the name of the Supreme Allied Commander to the Commanders in Chief of the Air , Naval and Land Forces , even though they outranked him . When Montgomery was appointed Commander in Chief Land Forces for the invasion , in December 1943 , he declared that Morgan ' s original plans were unworkable ; they had originally been limited by the availability of landing craft , but Montgomery insisted it would require more men attacking over a wider front . Ultimately , more landing craft were obtained and the invasion was scaled up to Montgomery ' s satisfaction , at the cost of a month ' s delay and a reduction in the Southern France operation . However , all the key features of Morgan ' s plan remained ; the choice of Normandy as the assault area , the use of Mulberry harbour s , the deployment of American forces on the right and British on the left , the use of airborne troops to cover the flanks , and some form of diversionary operation in Southern France . SHAEF . When Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Allied Commander the COSSAC team was absorbed into SHAEF . Eisenhower brought his Chief of Staff for Allied Forces Headquarters , Major General Bedell Smith , and moved the headquarters to Bushey Park . Morgan was offered command of a corps in Italy but declined in favour of becoming one of Smith ' s three deputies . His responsibilities covered Intelligence and Operations . Morgan coordinated the work of various SHAEF divisions and deputised for Bedell Smith when he was absent . Morgan was also called upon on occasion to deal with Montgomery , with whom his professional relationship as Deputy Chief of Staff was similar to that before the war when Montgomery was a brigade commander . On one occasion Morgan was summoned to Smith ' s office to find him white with rage at a telephone receiver . " That ' s your bloody marshal on the other end of that , " Smith explained . " I can ' t talk to him any more . Now you go on . " " As the campaign progressed , " Morgan later wrote , " it became more difficult for us British at SHAEF to provide explanation , as we were continually called upon to do , for the attitude and behaviour of the British authorities as exemplified by their chosen representative in the field . " Senior British officers at SHAEF , notably Morgan , Kenneth Strong and Jock Whiteley remained loyal to Eisenhower . This cast a pall over their careers after the war , when Montgomery became Chief of the Imperial General Staff . After the war Smith described Morgan as his British alter ego , " a man I wouldn ' t willingly have dispensed with " . Morgan served in this role until SHAEF was dissolved in June 1945 . He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath ( KCB ) in August 1944 " in recognition of distinguished services in connection with the invasion of Normandy " . The United States government awarded him the Legion of Merit in April 1945 , and the Distinguished Service Medal in 1948 for his services . Post - war career . UNRRA . In September 1945 Morgan became the Chief of Operations for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration ( UNRRA ) in Germany . He applied his energy and planning skills to the problem of providing relief to millions of refugees and displaced persons in Europe in the wake of the war . However he became frustrated with the inefficiency of the United Nations organisation . Events in the British – Zionist conflict in the British Mandate for Palestine made Morgan feel conflicted between his role in assisting Jewish refugees at UNRRA , whom he regarded as special victims of the Nazis for being persecuted solely for their race , and supporting British policy as a British Army officer . In January 1946 he created an uproar by claiming at a press conference that there was a secret Zionist organisation that was attempting to facilitate an " exodus " of Jewish people from Europe to a new state in Palestine with Soviet encouragement . He later wrote : A correspondent reported that Morgan made " casual observations based on what he saw . . . but the controversial remarks were taken out of the context and put together by correspondents . " UNRRA expected that Morgan would offer his resignation but he did not do so . An attempt to clarify his position " off the record " failed , and Morgan ' s position in Germany was eliminated by UNRRA Director Fiorello La Guardia . Morgan ' s statements caused a furore in the press , which portrayed them as anti - Semitic and distasteful . However , Morgan ' s comments were factual , based on military intelligence . It was reported at the time in " Time " magazine that : " Observers here [ in Berlin ] . . . are positive of [ Morgan ' s ] sincerity , and know he had no intention of feeding the fires of anti - Semitic propaganda . " Archibald MacLeish , a former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs , stated that when the press had finished with Sir Frederick , " . . the sum total effect was a lie and a disastrous and evil lie . This brings up the question of journalistic standards . In a world as closely integrated as this one is , the question must be asked : what is the standard of truth in journalism ? When the journalist is dealing with an inflammatory subject and so reports it that verbally his story is true , but the overall effect is false , are the standards of truth satisfied ? " With his military background , Morgan was appalled at the corruption , inefficiency and political diversion of UNRRA . A member of his staff said that " to serve such an outfit is degradation beyond description . In fact , [ Morgan wrote ] , to have been rejected for such service I have always felt to have been a high honour . " Atomic Energy . Morgan was appointed Colonel - Commandant of the Royal Artillery in 1948 . In 1951 , he succeeded Lord Portal as Controller of Atomic Energy . The position had been created in January 1946 as " Controller of Production , Atomic Energy " when the Ministry of Supply had assumed responsibility for nuclear weapon s . The job , the title of which was changed to " Controller Atomic Energy " in 1950 , had no written terms of reference , but carried broad responsibility for the coordination of all aspects of nuclear weapons production . Although located within the Ministry of Supply , the controller had direct access to the Prime Minister ; Portal rarely exercised this , however . It was widely believed that Morgan , who was , in the words of Margaret Gowing , " amiable but not adequate to the task " , had been appointed by mistake , having been confused with his namesake , General Sir William Duthie Morgan . The latter had greatly impressed Prime Minister Clement Attlee as Army member of the Joint Staff Mission to the United States from 1947 to 1950 . Morgan therefore relied heavily on his key subordinates , Sir John Cockcroft , William Penney , and Christopher Hinton . In his role as Controller of Atomic Energy , Morgan was present for Operation Hurricane , the first British atomic weapons tests at the Montebello Islands in October 1952 . His position was gradually reduced to a figurehead , with his authority largely supplanted by the Atomic Energy Board , which was chaired by Lord Cherwell , and was abolished in 1954 with the creation of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority . Morgan then became Controller of Nuclear Weapons . Nonetheless , he was still an important figure in the push for higher - yield weapons . He pressed for the testing of the Green Bamboo boosted fission weapon during Operation Mosaic . This resulted in Mosaic becoming a two - test series , although Green Bamboo could not be made available in time . A Green Bamboo assembly was subsequently taken to Christmas Island for Operation Grapple , but was deleted from the test series to save money . Morgan was also instrumental in putting the case for the development of the H - bomb on operational grounds . Morgan retired in 1956 , although he remained Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery until 1958 . He published his memoirs , entitled " Peace and War : A Soldier ' s Life " in 1961 . He died at Mount Vernon Hospital on 19 March 1967 .