Brief Resume of the Career of Eric Dorman-O’Gowan
(Formerly Dorman-Smith)
Born in Cootehill
Eric Edward Dorman Smith was born at Bellamont House on 24 July 1895 (the same day and date as the son of the local doctor!)
Eric was educated at Lambrook School in Berkshire, Uppingham School in Rutland from where he obtained entry to the Royal Military College (as it then was) Sandhurst in 1912. He was Commissioned in February 1914 in to the Northumberland Fusiliers (NF) and posted to the First battalion recently returned from India. The outbreak of war in August 1914 brought him to the Battle of Mons. He was wounded in the retreat to Le Cateau and he returned to England to recover. Subsequent returns to his battalion found him serving in various sectors of the Ypres Salient including the successful attack at St Eloi and the action at Bellewarde Wood. For his conduct in these operations he was awarded the Military Cross at the age of 19 years.
In early 1916 the Division in which his battalion was serving was sent to Italy to reinforce the Italian army after their failure at Caporetto. The Armistice in Italy found him as Commandant British Troops, Milan and it was on that day he met, and became close friends of, a young American journalist called Ernest Hemingway. This friendship was to last all their lives.
Rising in the Army
Shortly after that he was posted to 11th battalion, The Durham Light Infantry at Taranto initially as Adjutant and subsequently as Second in Command. On return to the UK, and 1 NF, he served as Adjutant in Germany and, briefly in Ireland up to the Treaty and, thereafter, back in the UK. The post war years saw his career develop as he became an instructor at Sandhurst, fulfilled various regimental appointments and was selected, in 1928, to attend the Staff College at Camberley where one of his
instructors was BL Montgomery and another Dick O’Connor. On passing out of Staff College he was posted as Brigade Major to the 6 th (Experimental) Infantry Brigade commanded by Brigadier AP Wavell (later Field Marshal the Earl Wavell). Success in that employment resulted in regimental employment followed by posting to the War Office in Whitehall where he was heavily
involved in the modernisation of the army as many could see that war was, once again, looming in Europe.
In 1936 he became an instructor at the Staff College Camberley, usually a three year posting but after only 16 months he was appointed to Command the first battalion of his regiment (now Royal) then stationed in Egypt. He made them ready for war and,
again, after only 18 months in command he was promoted to Brigadier to be Director Military Training India (DMT) in charge of the training of the whole Indian Army, some half a million men of whom 55,000 were from the British Army.
Success and ‘The Cairo Purge’
The arrival of Italy into the war on the side of the Axis and its subsequent invasion of Egypt led to Dorman-Smith’s involvement in the planning for Operation Compass, the 5 day raid on the Italians now ensconced in Egypt south of Sidi Barrani, by General Dick O’Connor’s Western Desert Force. So successful was this attack on 7 December 1940 that the raid developed in to a full campaign resulting, on the 7th February 1941, in the total destruction of the Italian Xth Army at Beda Fomm. The rest of Libya lay at the feet of the British but the astounding success of the Western Desert Force was dashed from the hands of O’Connor by Churchill who, in one of his more stupid strategic decisions, abandoned the campaign and, thereby, lengthened the war in North Africa by over two years. Dorman-Smith was present at Beda Fomm with O’Connor and urged Wavell to allow it to continue but the Prime Minister stopped it. Dorman-Smith subsequently returned to Haifa and held the appointment there of Commandant there until 16th June 1942 when he was called upon by Auchinleck, now GOCME, to be Deputy Chief General Staff Middle East. He moved to Cairo having learnt of the defeat of the 8th Army, commanded by General Ritchie, at the battle of Gazala. Tobruk fell on 21st June 1942 and, subsequent to that, Auchinleck removed Ritchie and assumed command himself taking with him Dorman-Smith to look after Middle Eastern matters while Auchinleck dealt with commanding the 8th Army. The First battle of El Alamein (1 July – 27 July 1942) followed and was successful in stopping Rommel achieving his goal of getting to Alexandria and/or Cairo. The story of that battle is well set out in a number of publications but it did set up the subsequent proposed second battle of El Alamein when the 8th Army was commanded by General Montgomery. In a political move to rescue his reputation following the loss of Gazala and the fall of Tobruk Churchill arrived in Egypt in early August 1942 and promptly sacked Auchinleck, Dorman-Smith and the Chief of the General Staff, General Corbett. This event became known as the ‘Cairo Purge’ and was predicated on a number of falsehoods perpetrated, subsequently, by both Churchill and Montgomery.
As for the First Battle of El Alamein Auchinleck, in later years, conceded that he could not have succeeded in stopping Rommel without Dorman-Smith. After his sacking by Churchill Dorman-Smith returned to the UK and was militarily unemployed until given 160 (Welsh) Brigade stationed in Kent in September 1942 with the task of preparing it for the invasion of Europe which was to come. This he did until it was announced in November 1943 that the new Corps Commander for the Corps in which 160 brigade was situated was to be General Ritchie, the one man who had led the 8th Army to defeat at Gazala. Dorman-Smith’s contempt for Ritchie was such that he refused to serve under him and asked to be moved which he was. He subsequently remained unemployed, though recommended for a Major-General’s appointment, when in March 1944, he was given Command of 3 Brigade, 1st Division, located in the Anzio bridgehead in Italy, north of Naples. His brigade was deeply involved in the breakout from the Anzio bridgehead and the subsequent successful attack on the Aquabona Ridge and the defeat of elements of a German Parachute Division located there was clear evidence of his competence as a battlefield commander. Dorman-Smith recommended each of his battalion commanders for the
DSO which they each received. By August 1944 the Brigade were in Divisional reserve near Florence when he was summoned by his Divisional Commander to meet him when he was told he was to be relieved of his command; he had been the victim of a conspiracy of calumny and lies. He was never to soldier again. He was forcibly retired from the army on 14 December 1944.
Politics and Redemption
He stood for election in the Liberal interest in the 1945 General Election but lost to Selwyn Lloyd and, thereafter, moved back to Ireland with his wife to be Eve Nott (nee Harben). After the death of his father, Major EP Dorman-Smith in 1948 he took over the Bellamont Estate and lived there, modernising and restoring the house, until his death from bowel cancer in 1969. In the intervening years he initially farmed at Bellamont, stood, unsuccessfully, for election to Dail Eireann as an Independent in the early 1950s and kept up a correspondence with both Auchinleck and Hemingway. It was Hemingway, indeed, who regarded Dorman-Smith as a heroic figure and refers to him in a number of his books such as ‘Death in the Afternoon’ and ‘A Moveable Feast’ and a scarcely concealed model in others such as “Across the River and into the Trees’.
Additionally, on the publication of Churchill’s “Second World War” (volume 4) in 1951 ‘The Hinge of Fate’ he considered that he, and Auchinleck, had been libelled regarding the First Battle of El Alamein and initiated proceedings to sue him for libel in the Irish Courts. As a result of Churchill settling the proposed action a footnote was entered in to all subsequent volumes exonerating Auchinleck, Dorman-Smith and Corbett from any responsibility for the defeat at Gazala in 1942. Eric Dorman-O’Gowan was interred at Ematris churchyard located between Cootehill and Rockcorry. His widow followed him there in 1974. Eric Dorman-O’Gowan’s papers are to be found, available for research, in the Special Collections of the John Rylands University Library at Manchester University.
Written by Christopher Dorman O’Gowan 2024
