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History

E.L.M. Burns – A Crisis of Command

by Major J.P. Johnston, CD

Rising through the officer ranks from second lieutenant to major-general is not an easy task, and is rarely accomplished by those who commence the climb up the military career ladder. Add appointment as an army corps commander during wartime and the accomplishments are laudable. But, be found lacking in the key attributes of a combat leader, lose the confidence of one’s superior officer and the respect of one’s subordinate divisional commanders, and disaster awaits around the next bend in the road or ridge line. This was the situation that faced Lieutenant-General E.L.M. ‘Tommy’ Burns while commanding I Canadian Corps in Italy during 1944. How could he have risen to attain such a position and then lose the appointment? That said, and to place what happened to Burns in perspective, many Allied commanders were “fired” for a broad spectrum of reasons, ranging from being overly cautious, to being overzealous and wasting the lives of the soldiers under their command. Even the famed American General George S. Patton was sacked on several occasions by General Omar Bradley, but was ultimately able to gain and execute a very successful command of the US 3^rd Army.

In the Beginning

Eedson Louis Millard ‘Tommy’ Burns commenced his military career in the Canadian militia at the age of 16 with the 17^th Hussars in Montreal. A year later, he was accepted into the Royal Military College at Kingston, Ontario, having been enrolled with 54 other recruits on 31 August 1914, and there he was exposed to the rigours of military life as a cadet. As a student, he did very well in artillery, tactics and English, as well as mathematics, military history, field sketching and military administration. The two-year program was cut short when he was awarded a Special War Certificate from the College in June 1915 on his 18^th birthday, the age of consent.¹ Thus, his formal education was trumped by the need to provide trained officers to the Canadian Expeditionary Force battalions in France. He was subsequently commissioned in the Royal Canadian Engineers and went overseas with the 2^nd Canadian Division, seeing action in France as a signals officer for the 11^th Brigade, 4^th Canadian Division.

He was twice wounded in combat, and he was also awarded the Military Cross for his gallant actions in personally laying and repairing signal cables under heavy enemy fire at the Battle of the Somme.² As a signals officer, Burns was responsible for the maintenance of communications between the brigade headquarters and its subordinate units located along the front lines. Communications depended mainly on the use of landline, as two-way radio communication was still in its infancy and unreliable. With his section of soldiers, he ensured that the switchboard was continuously manned and that the lines were promptly rendered intact after having been cut by enemy artillery fire. Laying and repairing line was not without its risks, and three soldiers under his command were awarded Military Medals for their courageous actions while under heavy enemy shelling.³

As a brigade staff officer, he was spared the daily and nightly rigours of trench warfare. For example, although he participated in brigade advances against the German lines, he did not lead assaults against enemy machine gun emplacements. However, as a staff officer, he was able to witness the planning and the control processes of a headquarters in support of the units under its command. He was also able to view first-hand the impact of orders directed from the general staff. In commenting upon the carnage of the Great War, Burns observed:

Higher Command and the military profession generally have seemed to think that they had an unlimited draft on the nation’s manhood, which they did not need to think too much about how they should economize their manpower. It did not occur to them to apply the famous military principle of economy of force.⁴

He further commented: “If a general uses up his capital in able-bodied soldiery before he has defeated his enemy, then he is defeated himself.”⁵ His experiences reinforced the need for precise staff work in order to provide the necessary level of support to front line troops “going over the top” in the face of a determined and well-placed enemy. These lessons in attention to detail may well explain some of his perceived shortcomings in command during a later war.

To hone his abilities as a staff officer, Burns was posted to the 9^th Brigade, 3^rd Canadian Division as a ‘staff learner’. There, he was able to refine his already-gifted planning capabilities under the tutelage of experienced staff officers, and he was also exposed to senior officers who possessed two key characteristics of command: the mental grasp that enabled them to master their increased responsibilities, and a bearing that telegraphed they “... were confident and held the confidence of the battalions they commanded”. In other words, a command presence.⁶ He was well regarded by his superiors, and his mother intimated this in a letter to the Commandant of RMC in 1919.⁷ By war’s end, Burns had been promoted to staff captain, the youngest in the Canadian Army, and he enrolled in the Permanent Force in 1920.⁸

Between the Wars

During the two decades prior to the Second World War, Burns was employed in a variety of staff positions at various headquarters, and he also served as an instructor at the Royal Military College. The inter-war period, in spite of its slow promotion possibilities, appeared to be the right environment for Tommy Burns. His intellectual abilities, and his skill as a staff officer, ensured his eventual rise through the ranks. After seven years as a captain, he was promoted to major in 1927, and then to brevet lieutenant-colonel in 1935. He also attended the right courses to improve his chances of promotion: the School of Military Engineering in Chatham, England from 1920 to 1921, the British Army Staff College in Quetta, India from 1928 to 1929, and the Imperial Defence College from December 1938 until the outbreak of the Second World War.⁹

This inter-war period also allowed him to develop further his critical thinking and writing skills. He became a prolific writer, and he authored many articles supporting the concepts of mobility and speed over surprise and decisiveness of action. His thoughts were greatly influenced by his experiences in the mud of the Western Front, and by the authoritative British armoured prophet, J.F.C. Fuller. Fuller was a strong advocate of the use of the tank and other armoured vehicles en masse. He also found a kindred spirit in the writings of the British Captain Basil H. Liddell-Hart.¹⁰ To support these concepts, he wrote a variety of articles that were published nationally in Canadian Defence Quarterly (CDQ), and internationally in the American Mercury. His first article, published in CDQ, advocated that horses should no longer be used in armies because of their vulnerability relative to armoured vehicles. As one could imagine, this caused quite a stir and debate in Canadian cavalry units at the time.¹¹

A contribution of note took place during his tenure as a general staff officer attached to the Geographic Section at National Defence Headquarters from 1931 to 1936. This section was responsible for producing maps for the Department of Defence. Burns envisioned an expanded role for this section, especially in experimentation with new mapping methodology and through the use of aerial photographs. The maps employed such innovations as common symbols for roads, railroads, houses, woods, water features, and so on, and also used contour lines to indicate changes in terrain, such as hills and valleys.¹² These developments were later adopted by the British for their own military mapping, and they became known as the Modified British Grid System.¹³

To War Again

Burns’s abilities as a seasoned and intelligent general staff officer were subsequently harnessed in the early years of the war at Canada House in London, where he was to “offer advice on many of the questions which would bound to arise...if Canada would decide to send a military force overseas.”¹⁴ Serving in this capacity, he became an integral part of a new Canadian Military Headquarters (CMHQ), commanded by Brigadier H.D.G. Crerar. It was during this period in London that he was able to earn his commander’s confidence. And this would, in turn, prove helpful, as Crerar would eventually rise to command the First Canadian Army, and Burns would be selected by him to command I Canadian Corps in Italy in 1944. When Crerar retuned to Canada in July 1940 to become Chief of the General Staff (CGS), he took Burns with him as his assistant deputy. Burns mainly dealt with the organization and the build-up of the mobilized Canadian Army. He was very interested in the now-developing Canadian Armoured Corps, a portent of which had been demonstrated in his academic writings a decade earlier. He understood that “standardized tactics and doctrine were necessary to ensure an effective Armoured Corps”,¹⁵ and he was vocal in his criticism of the British High Command’s lack of agreement over the role and employment of armour on the battlefield. He was also concerned with his superiors’ reliance upon the British model, which had not survived its first contact with the Wehrmacht prior to Dunkirk, and also with their general lack of understanding of mechanized warfare as it was then evolving in Europe.

Later, as the commander of the 4^th Canadian Armoured Brigade, concentrated at Camp Debert near Truro, Nova Scotia, and with Major-General Worthington, father of the Canadian Armoured Corps as his divisional commander, he was able to test his proposed doctrine with a small number of Ram tanks. These newly formed units were able to practise and develop their individual and collective skills prior to deployment to England. The aim was to “reach a stage where squadrons (some eighteen tanks) could operate as a unit and that headquarters of formations (brigade and divisional headquarters) were to attain enough efficiency to enable them to handle their units in battle”.¹⁶

When the 1^st Canadian Division and the 1^st Canadian Armoured Brigade were assigned to the invasion of Sicily in 1943, Burns did not deploy with them. Instead, he was promoted and assigned Commander of the 2^nd Canadian Division, which was still recovering from its mauling at Dieppe. He believed strongly that “ no men should go into battle without knowing how to use their weapons”. He also ensured that the sounds of the battlefield were used during many of the training exercises. This entailed the firing of live rounds from machine guns over the heads of the advancing troops from the direction of a defending enemy. Artillery fire and smoke were also simulated to provide realism, and to inoculate the troops to the sounds of battle. Despite Burns’s efforts to rebuild and train the 2^nd Division, he was not destined to command it during Operation Overlord and the subsequent Normandy campaign. That task was given to Major-General Charles Foulkes. Somewhat bitterly, Burns noted that commanders of divisions and corps were being changed habitually every year. He then suggested that:

If it is not possible for the Canadian formations to enter a decisive phase of the invasion of Normandy with experience of war, it would have been an advantage if they had entered it with the generals and brigadiers who had held their command long enough to train them in the operations they would have to perform and to become acquainted with the abilities of their subordinates.¹⁷

Burns, despite his demonstrated abilities, had not been afforded the opportunity to command in battle at either the battalion or the brigade level. However, he had worked on the staff at brigade and divisional levels during work-up training in Canada and England. And his first opportunity for an actual combat command would come when he was appointed to lead the 5^th Canadian Armoured Division in Italy on 23 January 1943. The division had been on the Italian mainland for 10 weeks when Burns took the helm. As was the case with many of his general rank contemporaries, Burns lacked actual combat command time on the field of battle at and above brigade level. He did, however, have the confidence of his Canadian superiors, McNaughton and Crerar, who both supported his appointment and were well aware of his high level of intelligence and his demonstrated staff ability as a general officer. His major shortcoming was his personality. A good commander must be able to exude inspirational confidence to his staff and subordinates, but this was not Tommy Burns’s strength. A confidential report of the period to the Minister of Defence, James Layton Ralston, suggested that Burns was an exceptional staff officer, but not without shortcomings.¹⁸

Exceptionally high qualifications but was not a leader. Difficult man to approach, cold and sarcastic. Will never secure devotion of his followers.¹⁹

In a similar vein, General G.C. Bucknell, who had taught at RMC, commented at one time to Basil Liddell-Hart that “ ...Burns is technically clever, but not such a good personality...”.²⁰ These perceived personality shortcomings would haunt him throughout his service career, and strain relationships not only with his superiors but also with subordinates, such as his eventual divisional commanders, Major-Generals Chris Vokes and Bert Hoffmeister.

A Golden Opportunity

After six weeks of commanding the 5^th Division in just static operations, Burns was promoted to command 1 Canadian Corps at the insistence of Crerar, by then the Commander of the 1^st Canadian Army. This was yet another promotion that had been granted without Burns having been tested in battle command against the Wehrmacht.²¹ Given this lack of combat command experience, he would also have to prove his abilities to General Sir Oliver Leese, who had been placed in command of the British 8^th Army after Montgomery’s return to England in preparation for Operation Overlord. Leese initially found Burns to be an acceptable corps commander, but that impression would diminish rather quickly.

The personalities of Burns and Leese were at opposite ends of the spectrum. While both were decorated veterans of the First World War, Burns was small, introverted and shy, while Leese was tall and lanky, possessed of an outgoing personality and an informal manner. Burns was “deadly serious about everything and was seldom known to laugh or crack a smile”.²² This characteristic did not go unnoticed by the troops, who bestowed upon him the sarcastic nickname ‘Smiling Sunray’.²³

A second issue between Leese and Burns was that the former felt strongly that the 8^th Army did not need yet another headquarters, and that 1 Canadian Corps should be disbanded and its two divisions brought under British command. Leese was unhappy that the Canadian Corps consisted of just two divisions, not the three found in standard British corps organization. In defence of this situation, the Canadian government had decided not to send a third division to the Italian campaign, focusing efforts instead on northwest Europe and Operation Overlord. However, Leese would not agree to supplement this shortfall by allocating another division to Canadian command in order to bring them up to standard British corps manning, thus harmonizing the Canadian Corps within the parent 8^th Army.²⁴

As it came to pass, Burns’s first test as a corps commander would come in the Liri Valley in an attack against the Hitler Line. The initial encounters with the enemy went well, but the breakthrough took too long, and it occurred too late to clinch a victory. The 5^th Armoured Division, under Bert Hoffmeister, encountered severe traffic congestion, which, in turn, created a gridlock on the main route through the Liri Valley when five divisions pressed forward along the same road. While Burns received praise for his opening encounter with the Wehrmacht, Leese blamed Burns and I Canadian Corps Headquarters for the failure, and he specifically cited shortfalls in staff work, inter-communications and traffic control. At the end of this particular operation, Burns was summoned to 8^th Army Headquarters, where Leese “read him the Riot Act about the staff work and control of the Canadian Corps”. Leese also complained to General Sir Harold Alexander, the Army Group Commander in Italy, that “it is not easy as (neither) Burns nor his Corps staff are up to the (British) Army standards”.²⁵ In short, Burns had not won the confidence of his boss, and he was positioning himself for replacement.

In response to these concerns, Crerar sent Major-General Kenneth Stuart, the Chief of Staff of CMHQ London, to Italy to investigate. In effect, Crerar’s reputation was on the line as he had gone even further out on a limb for Burns, identifying him as potentially being his own successor at 1^st Canadian Army. Stuart interviewed not only Leese and Alexander but also Burns’s two divisional commanders Hoffmeister and Vokes. The latter, when pressed, commented that Burns “seldom appears cheerful and his ‘sad sack’ manner repels subordinates and senior commanders alike...He seems to lack the human touch... necessary in the successful command of troops. All the British corps commanders in Italy are cheerful extroverts as part of their stock-in-trade. By comparison General Burns is a drab commander.” However, at the end of the interview, Vokes assured Stuart of his support for Burns.²⁶ Stuart presented his report to Crerar and then a sanitized report to Burns, who promised, if given another chance, he would be successful in the upcoming operation, an attack on the Gothic Line. Leese, however, did not agree with Stuart’s recommendation that Burns remain in command, although he sullenly accepted the fact eventually that Alexander had again cleared Burns to command, and that Leese would have to keep him.²⁷ However, Burns simply did not have his confidence.²⁸ This second chance, however, did not alter Burn’s downstream behaviour as he continued to obsess over meticulous administrative details that should best have been left to his staff. He also remained a stickler for military protocol and decorum from all ranks. The second major offensive for Burns was about to begin, and his troops still sarcastically referred to him as their ‘Smiling Sunray’.

As it materialized, the attack on the Gothic Line during late August and September of 1944 demonstrated amply the warfighting skills of the Corps. For his efforts in breaking the Adriatic anchor of the Gothic Line at Rimini, Alexander, based upon Leese’s turnabout showering praise, awarded Burns a prestigious “immediate category” Distinguished Service Order (DSO). He also reported to Stuart at 1^st Canadian Army HQ that Burns had done very well.²⁹ However, this success was short-lived and the drive forward stalled out with the approach of autumn and the ensuing rains. Burns’s command ability became, yet again, the target of complaints regarding the Canadian corps’ slow progress, this time from Leese’s successor at the helm of the British 8^th Army, Lieutenant-General Sir Richard McCreery.³⁰

The two Canadian division commanders, Vokes and Hoffmeister, had experienced more of the typical difficulties with their commander during this particular offensive period. As Vokes wrote to a friend at CMHQ London:

In spite of no able direction we continue to bear the cross for an individual who lacks the one iota of personality, appreciation of effort or the first goddamn thing in the application of book learning to what is practical in war & what isn’t. I have done my best to be loyal but goddamnit the strain has been too bloody great.³¹

Hoffmeister stated similar feelings to a Brigadier E.G. Weeks in mid-October 1944, even saying that he was often insubordinate to Burns, hoping that either he or Burns would be relieved. Simply put, Burns did not enjoy the support or loyalty of his two seasoned division commanders, and the situation facing him was no longer tenable. He held the confidence of neither his superiors nor his subordinates when he was summoned to General McCreery on 24 October 1944. In point of fact, Burns would claim he was surprised to be informed that he had been found lacking, and that McCreery was not satisfied with Burn’s performance. In Burn’s own words as corps commander:

I had thought that after the victories of the corps on the Adriatic offensive the higher command had revised its previously unfavourable opinion of my ability. Giving me command of divisions other than Canadian (the New Zealand Division and the 4^th British) had seemed to confirm this. I argued with General McCreery along these lines ...He did not believe that I had the determination to drive the Canadian Corps ahead... in (the) bad conditions we had been meeting and would meet on the Romagna Plain.³²

The End in Italy

The situation was now beyond the influence of Crerar. Burns had to go, and he was officially relieved of command on 10 November 1944. In his own defence, he wrote to Crerar, arguing that he had not failed in command:

...all objectives assigned to it (1 Canadian Corps), inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy, which comprised the best divisions in Italy. Though progress was not always as rapid as desirable, nevertheless, during our period of action, we went further and faster than any corps.³³

General Tommy Burns was one of those rare individuals who rose to command a corps in wartime. He had gained valuable combat experience during the First World War, and he had been decorated for gallantry in the field. He had a proven intellect and was constantly looking forward, advocating development and changes, and providing specific doctrine to implement those changes. He was able to debate his recommendations and views with the best military thinkers of the time, and he was able hold his ground while doing so. He was properly schooled in military staff work, having progressed with distinction though various British and Indian staff schools and colleges. His peacetime rise through the ranks and his key staff appointments provided the experience necessary to support a commander’s intent with the necessary orders and instructions. What he lacked was the somewhat intangible training to command at a high level: the necessary command presence to engender the confidence of his superiors and subordinates when he was given a golden opportunity. Burns was also not afforded an opportunity to command a brigade or a division in combat, prior to having command of a corps in battle thrust upon him. He was also in the unfortunate position of being the pawn in a political battle whereby his superior, Lieutenant- General Leese, did not want another corps headquarters, especially one that was a division short in establishment.

The commanding general of the 1^st Canadian Army championed Burns as a field commander. If Burns failed, it would reflect unfavourably upon Harry Crerar, and so Burns could not fail. His modus operandi as an accomplished and meticulous staff officer often distorted his professional relationships and priorities of command, as he would step down “into the weeds” and supervise even minor planning items in detail – jobs best left to his senior staff. Command relations were even further strained by his stern countenance and the fact that he rarely, if ever, was seen to provide encouragement to his subordinates. Looking back on his own experiences and shortcomings in command, he stated in his autobiography, General Mud, that:

...the commander of a higher formation who has worked up through the command of lower formations and units, where he has been close to where the fighting is, has a great advantage, and, ideally, no higher commander should be without such experience...It is not by coincidence that the most distinguished and able British commanders of higher formations in World War Two – Alexander, Montgomery, Slim – were graduates from the cruel school of the infantry in World War One. I unfortunately lacked the hard-won knowledge as qualification for higher command.³⁴

Mobilization during the summer and fall of 1939 infused the very small and fragmentary regular Army with a tidal wave of citizen volunteers: militia and civilians. As was the case during the First World War, many of the volunteers came from the militia, but they were not professional soldiers. Many other civilians lacked even militia experience. To train and prepare these new citizen soldiers for war was a monumental task, and Tommy Burns would have to play a key role in that process.

Many articles have been written about command and leadership within the Canadian military during the previous 20 years. Sociologists Ross Pigeau and Carol McCann have developed a model that explores the areas of competency, authority and responsibility and their relationship to command – the CAR model.³⁵ A key section of their model, competency, relates directly to Tommy Burns’s leadership style. These experts explore the requirements of both physical and intellectual competency, as well as interpersonal competency. Burns was in relatively good physical condition during the war years. There is no indication that he was unable to keep up with subordinate commanders. As for intellectual competency, he was highly regarded among his peers for his intellect. The literature indicates that, from his earliest staff assignments in 1918, he had been a conscientious and thorough planner. Perhaps he exercised this skill too enthusiastically, as witnessed by the extremely close supervision of his staff planners and his interest in minutiae. Where he appears to have been found lacking is in the area of interpersonal competency. According to Pigeau and McCann, this competency is “essential for interacting effectively with one’s subordinates, peers, superiors...and other government organizations”.³⁶ His lack of interpersonal skills, identified from the lowest private all the way up to his divisional commanders, was what generated that pejorative nickname. Burns was very serious about his profession, and his dour personality did not motivate his subordinates. He was not the charismatic leader who could imbue confidence and faith in them. After all, he had not risen to general officer rank on the force of his personality, but, rather, due to his staff and planning skills, which were recognized and highly valued by his Canadian Army superiors, McNaughton and Crerar.

The other two competencies, authority and responsibility, do not need to be argued, as they did not impinge upon Burns’s ability to engender loyalty and support from his subordinates. Neither Vokes nor Hoffmeister doubted his authority or responsibility to command – only the methodology he employed in doing so.

Second Chances

Although not a remarkable commander, Tommy Burns continued to serve in a staff capacity at 21 Army Group, where he was responsible for Canadian rear area units. After the war, he found his niche commanding the United Nations Emergency Force in Egypt between 1956 and 1959. He led this peacekeeping initiative exceptionally well, and it guaranteed him a reputation for excellence in this field with the Canadian public and with the body of world opinion. As a result of his efforts, he was given the rank of ambassador and appointed Canada’s official adviser for disarmament, an area in which he served the nation with great distinction for more than a decade. But that, as the saying goes, is a whole other story.³⁷