Titans of war who came face to face.

Byline: By Jane Hall And Beverley Addy

Field Marshall Erwin Rommel and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery first met across the battlefield in North Africa.

They were to face each other again in Europe. Jane Hall and Beverley Addy profile the two great wartime protagonists and speak to Bomber Command veteran Fred Whitfield.

At 5ft 7ins, Bernard Montgomery was the toughest of military taskmasters with a penchant for labelling lesser mortals as "useless, quite useless".

As Britain's most celebrated Second World War commander, many believed it was his dogged determination that won the war for the Allies. But others found him insufferable and "Monty" earned many enemies as he rose through the military ranks to lead the ground forces in the D-Day landings.

Sir Winston Churchill put it best with the succinct description: "In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable".

His 79-year-old son, David Montgomery ( now the second Viscount of Alamein, a title presented to his father ( told The Journal about his father. Bernard Law Montgomery was born in London on November 17, 1887, and educated at St Paul's School before going to Sandhurst and joining the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1908. The son of a bishop, Montgomery served in India where his austere religious upbringing and teetotal existence were at odds with his polo playing, cocktail-loving colleagues.

He soon came back to the UK and was sent to France to play his part in the First World War, but his first brush with battle was short-lived.

In October 1914, he was shot in the chest by a German sniper, only surviving when a man who had come to his aide was killed and fell on top of him, shielding Monty from yet more bullets. After recovering, Monty returned to the Western Front in 1916 and by 1918 was chief of staff of the 47th London Division.

Post-war he stayed in the Army, becoming an instructor at Camberley in 1926 and promoted to major general in 1938 before being sent to command British forces in Palestine. He married Betty in July 1927, a woman who brought out his softer side. David was their only child.

But tragedy struck 10 years later when Betty died of septicaemia, leaving both husband and child bereft. As a result, his already important career "became his focus" and took precedence, even above his son. "I was of secondary importance to what they were doing, what he was doing," says David. "I do not have any resentment of that at all.

"After my mother's death, his focus became even more sharply defined." When the Second World War broke out, Montgomery was called back from Palestine and sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force.

In 1940, he was forced to retreat to Dunkirk with the 2nd Corps after the Germans' successful Western Offensive. Monty was then put in charge of the 5th Corps from July 1940 to April 1941, 12th Corps from April 1941 to December 1941 and the South Eastern Army from December 1941 to August 1942. But with the German commander Erwin Rommel sweeping through Egypt, Churchill decided on a change of leader in the desert. Montgomery was dispatched to lead the 8th Army and went on to claim famous victories at El Alamein, Tripoli, eventually moving northwards to Italy.

David says: "He was a very, very dedicated soldier. He did not have hobbies apart from his military career ( he tried to win the battle as fast as possible with the minimum loss of life."

By this time, Montgomery's name was associated with success and ( more importantly ( hope. He returned home to a hero's welcome, which his close friends feared had gone to his head. "When he came back from Italy, he was appointed Commander in Chief for Operation Overlord," recalls David. Operation Overlord was the Allies' daring decision to invade German-held France and at the end of 1943 Montgomery was put in charge of US and British ground troops. He promptly ditched initial plans, increasing the scale of the attack to five divisions by sea and three by air.

In the countdown to D-Day, Monty tirelessly travelled the country to rally the troops, giving inspirational speeches.

Monty's relentless touring gave rise to suspicions with the popular anecdote at the time ( Churchill to the King: "I'm very worried, I think Monty is after my job." To which the King is rumoured to have replied: "Gosh. I'm very relieved to hear that; I thought he was after mine." Despite all this, Montgomery was forced to bow to General Dwight Eisenhower, the American who was overall in charge of the D-Day landings. The British commander's caustic manner aggravated the American generals, with his superior air and dismissive view of those from across the Pond. "One of his problems with his superiors and Americans was he didn't think they were entirely professional," his son explains.

For all his eccentricities and difficult relations with those more senior, Monty was adored by his troops and instilled utter loyalty. D-Day proved a success and ( despite the horrendous defeat at Arnhem in September 1944 ( ultimately prompted victory in May 1945, where he accepted the surrender of German troops in the Netherlands and north-west Germany.

During his time away, Monty was a prolific letter-writer, sending short but regular missives from the front line. "He exuded confidence," David says. "In retrospect you could see he did get frustrated about certain things but that was more about decisions made by the supreme commander (Eisenhower)." For the last five years of his life, Monty was ill. The old soldier was confined to bed and on March 24, 1976, he passed away with David by his side.

Reflecting on his famous parent, David says: "He was a very good father, he was very generous and conscientious but unfortunately we tended to lead our own separate lives. I am very conscious of my responsibility to ensure that his legacy is that of the greatest British military commander of the 20th century."

Aircraft gunner's life 'always on line'

As the war started Fred Whitfield was a van driver for Crofton's department store in South Shields.

That's where he met his wife, Betty, then a shop girl at the same store and still in her teens.

As Fred, of Walworth Avenue, Marsden, South Tyneside, was busy taking out German targets from his post as rear gunner in his crew's Lancaster, Betty had moved jobs. Crofton's had been bombed and she ended up making Lancaster engines in the converted Rover factory in Birmingham.

"He was flying them and I was making them," says Betty.

By D-Day Fred, now 83, was a rear gunner flying mostly in Lancasters with No.9 Squadron of Bomber Command. On the day itself they were flying up and down the English Channel "distracting Jerry, to give the impression that the real target was Pas de Calais.

"We never knew our target until we went into the briefing about six hours before the raid. We were told it would be one of the biggest of the war," explains Fred, or Sgt Whitfield as he was.

A couple of days after D-Day their target was Caen.

"The British troops had landed and were pushing the Germans back and back," says Fred. But they had reached an impasse at the River Orme, where strong resistance was preventing the Army from crossing.

"It was a dawn raid. Our job was to flatten the area. There were 942 aircraft on that raid and 6,800 tonnes of bombs was dropped."

"Your life was on the line during every raid you went on. I flew 48 missions." Fred was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for shooting down three planes in the air battle over Pas de Calais later that year in November 1944, in an aircraft that never flew again. "Once the Second Front had taken place there was a lot of hope."

Rommel ( brilliant leader of men

For a man known for his military exactitude, it is somewhat ironic that just hours before D-Day, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was away from his troops and buying shoes for his wife.

As the Allied forces gathered for their daring onslaught which turned the tide of the Second World War in their favour, Rommel was back in Germany. Despite being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the commander of Germany's troops in north-west France and the Atlantic Wall was admired and respected as a military leader.

Born in 1891, Rommel was a career soldier and completely apolitical. During the First World War he commanded a mountain combat group which captured 9,000 Italian prisoners.

Senior officers described him as "a commander of genius whom his troops followed with blind trust everywhere".

While he welcomed Hitler's reintroduction of compulsory military service, he was cool towards the National Socialist Party.

At the 1936 Olympic Games, Rommel was the Fuhrer's escort and Hitler ordered that in the event of mobilisation, Rommel should be given command of his headquarters. Promoted to brigadier general in 1939, Rommel was put in charge of the 7th Panzer Division in the Second World War.

His push through the Ardennes to the Atlantic with his "Ghost Division" enhanced his reputation and when Hitler ordered troops to north Africa, Rommel ( now a major general ( was made commander of the Afrika Korps.

It was during his time in Africa that Rommel's reputation as an outstanding military figure was cemented.

Between March 1941 and January 1942, he drove the British to the Egyptian border, was repulsed and then forced the allies back towards Cairo again. He beat the British in May 1942 at Gazala and Tobruk. Hitler was so delighted, he appointed him the youngest field marshal in the German army.

But Rommel's final attempt to crush the allies ended with defeat at the hands of British commander Bernard Montgomery at El Alamein in November 1942.

Despite Hitler's "no retreat" order, Rommel's troops were forced to push back to Tunisia.

And four months later, Montgomery won a second spectacular victory, again with the USII Corps, at Kasserine Pass.

Despite defeat and fleeing Tunisia on March 9, 1943, Rommel was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with oak leaf cluster, swords and diamonds.

Both he and Hitler believed Normandy was a likely spot for an allied invasion and fortifications were reinforced.

He was appointed second in command to Gerd von Runstedt, Commander in Chief of the West.

Despite his fears of invasion, Rommel's requests for more tanks and extra coastal defences went unheeded and the Allied forces were able to penetrate the German line. Once established on land, the Allies took the upper hand after several bloody battles and the Germans lost the initiative.

After D-Day, Rommel tried to convince the Fuhrer that they would lose the war, but Hitler would not believe him. Having lost faith in his leader, Rommel was determined to surrender German forces in the west. But before he could do so, he was badly wounded when his car was shot up by a Spitfire and after treatment he went to his home in Herrlingen, near Ulm, to recover.

He was not thought to be part of the July bomb plot against Hitler but his attempts to persuade the Fuhrer to negotiate with the allies planted suspicions. On October 14, 1944 two generals visited Rommel while he recovered at home and offered him the choice of death by poison or facing a Nazi tribunal. According to his son Manfred, who was 15 at the time, Rommel told him: "In view of my services in Africa, I am to have the chance of dying by poison." He chose suicide, left the family home in a car accompanied by the two generals and 20 minutes later he was dead.