The author’s grandfather, James Arthur Dermot Dempsey (1889-1950) #11332 was one of three boys identified in The Last Rainbow as the courageous Dempsey brothers. The other two were Patrick Henry Delafosse Dempsey (1893-1980) #12539 and Miles Christopher Dempsey (1897-1969) #11336. All three were wounded in the Great War and Jim and Miles won the Military Cross. Miles was one of only three senior general officers to win two DSOs in WW2. Indeed, it is General Sir Miles Christopher Dempsey GBE, KCB, DSO*, MC who is my fourth member.
General Sir Miles served in both World Wars. During the Second World War he had a close relationship with Bernard Montgomery and commanded XIII Corps for the invasions of Sicily and Italy and later commanded the British Second Army during the Battle of Normandy and made notably rapid advances in the subsequent campaign in Northern France and Belgium. He was the first British Army commander to cross the Rhine.
Sir Miles was educated at Shrewsbury where he captained the first XI Cricket in 1914. After the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst he joined the Royal Berkshire Regiment and won an MC during service on the Western Front. Between the wars he played two first-class cricket matches for Sussex against Oxford University and Northamptonshire. For 5 or 6 years he played Minor Counties Championship cricket for Berkshire.
Military historian Carlo D’Este wrote of him as follows:
“A career infantryman, Dempsey was an ardent student of military history and during the interwar period had frequently visited Europe to study its battlefields first-hand. Blessed with an active and incisive mind, a phenomenal memory and a unique skill in reading maps, Dempsey would soon leave his army staff in awe over his ability to remember everything he saw on a map, to bring a landscape literally to life in his mind even though he had never actually seen it. This talent proved particularly important during the crucial battles around Caen in June and July 1944. Dempsey was considered the Eighth Army’s best expert in combined operations and, as he grew in experience, Montgomery soon recognized his potential for army command. The two men shared many qualities, including a disdain for paperwork and a determination, based on their First World War experiences, never to waste their soldiers’ lives.”
Reverting to The Last Rainbow we find an interesting and pride-inducing tailpiece. On 22nd of May 1599 Terence O’Dempsey was knighted on the field of battle by the Earl [of Essex] as reward for his services and loyalty. 529 years later, on the 15th of October 1944, with the enemy guns booming in the distance, King George V carefully placed his sword on the right shoulder of a senior British Army Officer. He then lifted the sword above the kneeling man’s head, turned the blade counter clockwise and rested it again on the left shoulder. With the words; “Arise Sir Miles”, the first man to be knighted [on the field of battle] for over half a millennium rose to his feet. He was of course my illustrious great-uncle, Miles.
NB Numbers shown thus #1111 indicate the bearer’s position on theMY FAB FIVE: 4 The D-Day Commander
