M. E. Clifton James

The genuine Monty

Meyrick Edward Clifton James (1898 - 8 May 1963, Worthing, England) was an actor and soldier, notable for his resemblance to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.^[1] This was used by British intelligence as part of a deception campaign in 1944.

Life

Clifton James was born in Perth, Australia, the youngest son of notable Australian public servant John Charles Horsey James, and his wife Rebecca Catherine Clifton.^[2] After serving in World War I he took up acting and at the outbreak of World War II volunteered his services to the British Army as an entertainer. Instead of being assigned to ENSA as he had hoped, Clifton James was commissioned into the Royal Army Pay Corps in 1940 and eventually posted to Leicester. Here, his acting seemed to be limited to his membership of the Pay Corps Drama and Variety Group.

Operation Copperhead

About seven weeks before D-Day in 1944, a British Lieutenant-Colonel, J.V.B. Jervis-Reid, noticed Clifton James's resemblance to Montgomery while he was reviewing photographs in a newspaper; James, it seemed had 'rescued' a failing patriotic show by appearing in it, quite briefly, as 'Monty.' MI5 decided to exploit the resemblance to confuse German intelligence. James was contacted by Lieutenant-Colonel David Niven, who worked for the Army's film unit, and was asked to come to London on the pretext of making a film. The ruse was part of a wider deception which aimed to divert troops from northern France, by convincing the Germans that an Allied invasion of Southern France (Operation Dragoon) would precede a northern invasion.^[3]

The plan was code-named Operation Copperhead and Clifton James was assigned to Montgomery's staff to learn his speech and mannerisms. Despite the problems that he had with alcohol (Montgomery did not drink at all), and the differences in personality, the project continued. He also had to give up smoking. Clifton James had lost his right-hand middle finger in the First World War and so a prosthetic finger was made.

On 25 May 1944 Clifton James flew from RAF Northolt to Gibraltar on Churchill's private aircraft. At a reception at the governor-general's house, hints were made about "Plan 303", a plan to invade southern France. German intelligence picked this up and ordered agents to find out what they could about Plan 303.

Clifton James then flew to Algiers where over the next few days he made a round of public appearances with General Maitland Wilson, the Allied commander in the Mediterranean theatre. Clifton James was then secretly flown to Cairo where he stayed until the invasion in Normandy was well underway. He then returned to his job after an absence of five weeks.

Various reasons were put forward for the speedy conclusion of the operation (including the suggestion that Clifton James was seen in Gibraltar smoking and drunk), though the most likely explanation is the one put forward by Dennis Wheatley (who was part of the British deception efforts during the war) in The Deception Planners published in the 1980s. In it, he states that the operation was wound up successfully, its purpose accomplished. He also suggests that it ended "rather pathetically" and that Clifton James was simply hidden out of sight in a hotel in Algiers with a whisky bottle for company. He was to end his war still in the Pay Corps, apparently forgotten, having to lie about his missing five weeks, having been (according to Wheatley) "treated shabbily" with no official recognition for his services.

I Was Monty's Double

In 1954 Clifton James published his exploits in a book entitled - I Was Monty's Double - aided by a ghostwriter. It seemed to strike a chord with the British public at the time, as quite a few wartime secrets were entering print under the Ten Year rule. It was even parodied by Spike Milligan, in concept if not in plot, in the Goon Show episode 'I was Monty's Treble'("So, we need forty thousand Monty's doubles, eh? We'll have to form regiments!").

The book became the basis for the script of the 1958 film of the same name, starring John Mills and Cecil Parker with Clifton James playing himself and Montgomery. The script was 'tweaked' for effect; 'Operation Copperhead' became 'Operation Hambone,' and additional elements of comedy, danger and intrigue were added, but it largely follows the story given in the book, and gave Clifton James a deserved if belated recognition, and a sort of screen immortality. He died on 8 May 1963 at his home on Thorn Road in Worthing Sussex, aged 65.^[4]

The Daily Mail of 9 May 1963 quotes Viscount Montgomery, then himself 75, as saying of James; "He was not a friend of mine. Only met him once. Of course he observed me a great deal. He did a very good job, a very good job, and fooled the Germans at a critical time of the war. I am very sorry to hear of his death."^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Political decoy

Notes

1. ^ Obituary Variety, 15 May 1963.
2. ^ James, John Charles Horsey - Australian Dictionary of National Biography. URL accessed on 13 June 2006.
3. ^ Casey, Dr Dennis. "The impersonation of General Montgomery". Air Intelligence Agency. http://aia.lackland.af.mil/homepages/pa/spokesman/Jan05/atc10.cfm. Retrieved 2006-06-13. .
4. ^ Obituaries: The Times, page 17. 9 May 1963

References

• Clifton James, M. E., I Was Monty's Double; Hamilton and Co. 1954
• Howard, Sir Michael, Strategic Deception (British Intelligence in the Second World War, Volume 5); Cambridge University Press, New York, 1990, p. 126
• Holt, Thaddeus, The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War ; Scribner, New York, 2004, pp. 561–62, 815
• British National Archives, "A" Force Permanent Record File, Narrative War Diary, CAB 154/4 pp. 85–90

External links

• M.E. Clifton James at the Internet Movie Database

Persondata
Name	Clifton James, M. E.
Alternative names
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Date of birth	1898
Place of birth
Date of death	8 May 1963
Place of death