Sir Giffard Martel | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Martel in 1941 | |
| Nicknames | "Q Martel" "Q"[1] |
| Born | (1889-10-10)10 October 1889[2] Millbrook, Southampton,Hampshire, England |
| Died | 3 September 1958(1958-09-03) (aged 68) |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Branch | British Army |
| Service years | 1908–1945 |
| Rank | Lieutenant-General |
| Service number | 6628 |
| Unit | Royal Engineers Royal Tank Regiment |
| Commands | 9th Field Company RE[3] 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division Royal Armoured Corps |
| Conflicts | First World War Second World War |
| Awards | Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire Distinguished Service Order Military Cross Mentioned in Despatches (5)[4] |
Lieutenant-GeneralSir Giffard Le Quesne Martel,KCB, KBE, DSO, MC (10 October 1889 – 3 September 1958) was aBritish Armyofficer who served in both theFirst andSecond World Wars. Familiarly known as "Q Martel" or just "Q", he was a pioneering British military engineer and tank strategist.
Born into a traditional military family he was the son ofBrigadier-GeneralSir Charles Philip Martel who was Chief Superintendent of Ordnance Factories. He married Maud Mackenzie on 29 July 1922 and they had one son.[5]
Martel entered theRoyal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1908 and wascommissioned as asecond lieutenant into theBritish Army'sRoyal Engineers on 23 July 1909.[6] Martel was instrumental in the establishment of The Royal Navy and Army Boxing Association in 1911[7] and was Army and Inter Services boxing champion both before and after World War I.[8]
Martel deployed for theFirst World War with9th Field Company RE, serving in theGreat Retreat,First Battle of the Marne,First Battle of the Aisne, theBattle of Armentières and theSecond Battle of Ypres. He commanded the 9th Field Company from October 1915 to July 1916.[3]
In 1916, as asapper officer with direct experience of the first British use of tanks on theSomme, Martel was put in charge of recreating a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) wide replica of the British and German trench systems, complete withno man's land, atElveden,Norfolk, as part of atank training ground.[10]
There he developed a keen interest in tank theory believing them to be the future of warfare and in November 1916 he wrote a paper,A Tank Army, suggesting an army composed entirely of armoured vehicles. AsJ. F. C. Fuller'sGSO3 the wide-ranging ideas set out in this paper profoundly influenced Fuller's thinking which at the time simply regarded the tank as no more than a useful adjunct to infantry on the battlefield.[11] Martel was also interested in the construction of wire net roads as deployed in the British Army's 1917–1918campaign in the Sinai and Palestine and their use in supporting tracked vehicles.[12]
In late 1916, Martel was onHugh Elles' staff atBermicourt in France assisting Fuller on the operational planning.[13]
In addition to hisMilitary Cross (1915) andDistinguished Service Order (1916),[14] in the course of the war Martel wasmentioned in despatches five times.[15][4]
After theArmistice with Germany, now amajor, Martel was able to combine his two interests of tanks and military bridging when he became head of theExperimental Bridging Establishment atChristchurch, Hampshire, which researched the possibilities of using tanks for battlefield engineering purposes such as bridge-laying andmine-clearing.[16] Here he continued trials on modifiedMark V tanks. The bridging component involved an assault bridge, designed by MajorCharles Inglis RE, the Canal Lock Bridge, which had sufficient length to span acanal lock.[17]
Martel, who attended theStaff College, Camberley, from 1921 to 1922, also developed his new bridging concept at the EBE, the Martel bridge, amodularbox girder bridge suitable for military use.[4] The Martel bridge was adopted by the British Army in 1925 as the "Large Box Girder Bridge".[18] A smaller version, the Small Box Girder Bridge, was also formally adopted by the Army in 1932 and copied by many countries, including Germany, who called their version theKastenrager-Gerät (K-Gerät for short).[18] The United States created a copy, the H-20. The modular construction of the basic Martel bridge was also used for theBailey bridge. In 1954, theRoyal Commission on Awards to Inventors awarded Martel £500 for infringement on the design of his bridge by the designer of the Bailey bridge,Donald Bailey.[19]
Martel also continued to pursue his interest in tanks independently. In 1925 he built, in his own garage, a one-mantankette powered by a car engine and capable of a speed of 15 mph (24 km/h).[20] After a demonstration to theWar Office,Morris Commercial Cars was contracted to build four test models, the first of which was delivered in 1926. Carden Loyd Tractors[21] built a similar one-man machine, theCarden Loyd One Man Tankette.[22]
In 1927, eight more Martel tankettes were ordered to assess their potential role in forward reconnaissance. They were tested along with two-manCarden Loyd tankettes in manoeuvres with theExperimental Mechanized Force onSalisbury Plain in 1927 and 1928.[23]
The idea for a single-man fighting vehicle was soon dropped as it became apparent that one operator could not control the vehicle at the same time as firing a weapon and the British Army requirement for a light tank, theLight Tank Mark I, was a development of the Carden Loyd tankette.[24] Morris Motors tried developing a two-man version of the Martel design andCrossley Motors a further version – theMorris-Martel – in 1927 withKégresse rubber tracks but after two prototypes were tested the project was abandoned.[25][26]
In 1928, the Tank and Tracked Transport Advisory Committee that Martel was a member of became the Mechanical Warfare Board which was to liaise with industry and to advise on technical matters relating to "mechanised transport".[27] In 1929, Martel was seconded to theKing George V's Own Bengal Sappers and Miners and then served as an instructor at theBritish Indian Army'sStaff College inQuetta from 1930 until 1934, after which he attended theImperial Defence College.[4] From 1936 until 1939, Martel served at the War Office, first as Assistant Director of Mechanisation, then from 1938 as the Deputy Director with the temporary rank of Brigadier.[28][2]
In 1936, he attended along with Wavell a large-scale tank exercise in the Belorussian Military District of theSoviet Union in which large numbers of the SovietBT tanks took part. Martel pressured for a similar fast tank design to be investigated for addition to British tank brigades and convinced the General Staff to issue a specification for a cruiser tank.[29]
Martel was appointedGeneral Officer Commanding the50th Northumbrian Division, Territorial Army in February 1939 with the rank ofmajor-general.[30][31] The division had been converted from October 1938 to "motorised" with the whole of the infantry being carried by large lorries.[32]
The 50th Division embarked for France on 14 September 1939 as part of theBritish Expeditionary Force (BEF). There, on 21 May 1940 during theBattle of France, Martel directed the tank attack on the7th Panzer Division in theBattle of Arras in which the German frontline was driven back eight miles.[5][33]
Following the BEF's evacuation, Martel became the Commander of theRoyal Armoured Corps in 1940 where he put his theories ofarmoured warfare to good use.[34][35] In March 1941, he gave themilitary attaché of the neutral United States inLondon, Brigadier General Raymond E. Lee, a report outlining his experiences and assessment of the German armoured tactics in France.[36]
In March 1943, Martel became the Head of the Military Mission to the Soviet Union.[37] He assessed the effectiveness of the Sovietorder of battle and tactics during a visit to the front line in theKursk-Oryol region between 11 and 19 May 1943.[38][39]
His reports based on his visit to the Soviet front line and his discussions with theRed Army Tank Directorate concluded that the Soviet battlefield experience would be far more relevant to armoured tactics in the forthcomingOperation Overlord than that of the experience of the British Army in theNorth African campaign. Martel's intelligence-gathering and his clear and perceptive analyses of the Soviet military position were commended by his superiors at the War Office but with the arrival of the new and overtly anti-communist Head of RAF Mission, Air Marshal SirJohn Babington in September 1943 his working relationship with the Soviets deteriorated with a marked decline in co-operation. He was recalled, being replaced by Lieutenant-GeneralMontagu Burrows and left Moscow on 7 February 1944.[40] Later that month, he lost his right eye as a result of a German bombing raid on London.[41]
Martel was knighted in 1943,[42] with theKnight Commander of the Order of the Bath following in 1944.[5] He retired from the army in 1945 with the rank of lieutenant-general.[43][39][44] He stood unsuccessfully as theConservative Party candidate for theBarnard Castleconstituency in the1945 UK General Election.[45][44]
On his retirement, Martel wrote on military matters. He died at his home inCamberley,Surrey, on 3 September 1958.[46]
Adopted by the Army in 1925 the Large Box Girder Bridge was adaptable and relatively cheap, able to carry loads of up to 40 tonnes, it remained in service until replaced by the Bailey.
| Military offices | ||
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| Preceded by | GOC 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division 1939–1940 | Succeeded by |
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