At the outbreak of the First World War in the summer of 1914, Alderson was placed in charge of the 1st Mounted Division and all troops in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk but was soon requested for command of the newly formed First Canadian Contingent due to his experience in South Africa commanding Canadian troops.
Significantly, they were not only staffed by women, but women were in charge – one of whom, Dr Isabel Emslie (who later married my father's cousin), wrote an account of her experience in command of the unit sent to Serbia (With a Woman's Unit in Serbia, Salonika and Sebastopol).
Northcott's lack of experience in command once again showed, and his command was again overhauled by Robertson.
Plotting with Bean, he tried to install Major-General Brudenell White as Australian commander against the Australian Cabinet's decision to appoint Major-General John Monash; this despite the fact that White had no experience of commanding in the field and had himself declared Monash the "abler man".
Originally consisting of twenty-one crews, fifteen were selected to continue training, and were organized into three flights of five crews, lettered A, B, and C. The 393d Bombardment Squadron was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas J. Classen, who like Tibbets had combat experience in heavy bombers, commanding a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress with the 11th Bombardment Group.
Although several famous admirals of the day had previously been army commanders, including Blake and Monk, they had commanded relatively small land forces and Rupert was still relatively unusual for the period in having both practical experience of commanding large land armies and having extensive naval experience from his campaigns in the 1650s.
When we met recently in Iraq, I asked Petraeus if that ad in the Times had marked the low point of his personal experience in this command.
If he was expected to learn anything from experience in high command, it would have to come from carrying out and evaluating the plans made by others.
