Lieutenant-General Bob Moncel RIP

[Kyt]

Halifax, The Daily News: Columns | Moncel was armoured commander

One of Canada's last Second World War senior army commanders passed away in Halifax's Camp Hill Veterans' Memorial Building on Dec. 10, in his 91st year. Bob Moncel, whose funeral was held on Monday, was a long-time resident of Nova Scotia.

As far as I can discover, Moncel's death leaves only one surviving wartime senior commander. Elliot Rodger, 100, commanded 10th Infantry Brigade, and lives in Ottawa.

Moncel, a pre-war militia officer in Montreal's Victoria Rifles, was promoted to brigadier in August 1944 in Normandy to command 4th Armoured Brigade, replacing Brig. Les Booth, who had been killed in action. At just 27 years of age, he was Canada's youngest brigadier.

Moncel's rise through the officer ranks was meteoric. A lieutenant when the war broke out in 1939, he was promoted captain in 1941, major in 1942, lieutenant-colonel in 1943 and brigadier in 1944, skipping the rank of colonel.

Moncel sailed to England in late 1939 as a platoon commander in the Royal Canadian Regiment, a unit of 1st Infantry Brigade in 1st Canadian Infantry Division. Before the fall of France, he was one of few Canadians to make it to the continent when his brigade was sent to reinforce the British and French.

Blitzkrieg

In June 1940, the Germans overran France in one of history's first "blitzkrieg" operations - lightning-fast thrusts by tanks and motorized infantry, supported by aircraft. They quickly reached the English Channel, leaving 1st Brigade scrambling to return to England.

Ordered by a British officer to destroy his platoon's valuable Bren-gun carriers, Moncel managed to get them aboard a ship as ballast - after he ordered his platoon sergeant to shoot the British officer if he interfered.

Prof. Terry Copp, who heads the Laurier Centre for Military and Strategic Disarmament Studies at Waterloo's Wilfred Laurier University, is one of Canada's leading military historians. He is the author of several books and our foremost expert on the 1944-45 Canadian campaign in Northwest Europe.

Copp has researched the operations of 4th Armoured Brigade in detail. He told me that although the commander of II Canadian Corps, Lieut.-Gen. Guy Simonds, "was not impressed with most brigadiers and lieutenant-colonels, he was convinced that Moncel was the brightest one to take over a brigade."

Moncel had been the top student on the first three-month wartime staff college course - which Simonds ran - and was on Simonds's staff when Booth was killed.

During interviews with veterans of 4th Armoured Division (the division to which 4th Armoured Brigade belonged), Copp discovered that they were convinced that Moncel "was the best of the brigade commanders the division ever had."

Copp says Moncel "knew how to handle mixed groups of armour and infantry." He commanded the brigade - consisting of three armoured regiments and a motorized infantry battalion-until the end of the war.

Fourth Brigade operations under Moncel's command included the slugfests of Falaise and the Hochwald. According to Copp, the Hochwald was probably "the worst 10 days ever" for 4th Division.

Moncel was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his actions there - "an inspiration to all troops under his command and the successful outcome of the attack was in great measure due to his vigorous leadership."

'Excellent'

Retired brigadier-general Ned Amy of Halifax served under Moncel in 4th Armoured Brigade as both a squadron commander and commanding officer of the Canadian Grenadier Guards. "Moncel was an excellent formation commander," Amy told me. "We knew he would never do anything stupid, and we couldn't say that about all our commanders."

Amy noted that Moncel was an "outstanding leader and a perfectionist." He was also "very reserved by nature, which some regarded as aloofness."

Moncel remained in the army after the war, retiring in 1966 as a lieutenant-general and vice chief of the defence staff - the second-highest position in the Armed Forces. Along the way, he was General Officer Commanding Eastern Command, with headquarters in Halifax from 1962 to 1964.

With his Halifax connections (his wife, Billie, was a member of the city's wealthy Bell family), Moncel retired in 1968 to Murder Point (more commonly known today as Martin's Point) near Mahone Bay, on land owned by his wife's family.

Coincidentally, one of his neighbours ("about three miles as the crow flies, seven miles by road") was Ned Amy.