Frederick E. Morgan - Between The Wars

Between The Wars

In 1919, Morgan volunteered for a six-year tour of India and joined the 118th Field Battery, 26th Field Brigade, at Deepcut, where it was forming and training for service in the subcontinent. Later that year the brigade moved to its new station at Jhansi. After three years Morgan was posted to Attock, where he commanded the Divisional Ammunition Column. In 1924 he accepted a temporary staff posting as Deputy Assistant Adjutant General (DAAG) of Major General Sir Herbert Uniacke's 1st (Peshawar) Division at Murree. This was followed in 1925 by a year's secondment to the headquarters of Lieutenant General Sir Claud Jacob's Northern Command, where Morgan helped plan and direct large-scale manoeuvres.

Morgan returned to England in 1926, and assumed command of the 22nd Heavy Battery. Equipped with a mixture of 9.2 inch guns, 6 inch guns, 12 pounders and 6 pounders, it was responsible for the coastal defences of Weymouth, Dorset. Still a captain, Morgan hoped that his next career move would be to attend the Staff College, Camberley, having narrowly passed the entrance examination. Instead, he was offered a place at the Staff College, Quetta, requiring a return trip to India. Morgan's classmates at Quetta in 1927 and 1928 included William Slim, John Crocker, Kenneth Anderson, David Cowan, George Alan Vasey and Tommy Burns. After graduation, Morgan was posted to the 70th Field Battery at Lucknow, and then was artillery staff officer at headquarters Western Command, under Brigadier Henry Karslake. When Karslake became Major General, Royal Artillery, at GHQ India in 1931, he brought Morgan to Delhi to serve with him as General Staff Officer (Grade 2). Morgan was finally promoted to major in 1932 and brevet lieutenant colonel in 1934.

Returning to England in 1934, Morgan assumed command of the 4th Anti-Aircraft Battery, which was deployed to Malta during the diplomatic crisis that accompanied the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935. He served in the War Office from 1936 to 1938. Here he became increasingly disturbed at the lack of urgency that the government displayed in the face of a war that Morgan and his fellow staff officers felt was inevitable and imminent. That year he was promoted to colonel and became General Staff Officer (Grade 1) of the 3rd Division, in which Brigadier Bernard Montgomery commanded a brigade.