Humfrey Gale

Lieutenant-General Sir Humfrey Myddelton Gale, (4 October 1890 – 8 April 1971) was an officer in the British Army who served in the First and Second World War, during which he was Chief Administrative Officer at Allied Forces Headquarters and later SHAEF under General Dwight D. Eisenhower. After the Second World War he was European Director of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, worked for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and was chairman of the Basildon, Essex New Town Development Corporation

Early life Humfrey Myddelton Gale was born in London, England on 4 October 1890, the eldest of five children of Ernest Sewell Gale, an architect, and his wife Charlotte Sarah née Goddard. He was educated at St Paul's School, London and studied at the Architectural School, Westminster from 1908 to 1910. While there he served with the Artists Rifles of the Territorial Force. He decided to pursue a career in the British Indian Army and applied to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. His application was successful and he entered the college in 1910. However, he did not graduate sufficiently high in his class to qualify for a posting to the Indian Army and was instead commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Service Corps (later the Royal Army Service Corps) of the British Army in September 1911. His early service was at Woolwich and Aldershot.

First World War During the First World War, Gale served on the Western Front, where he was awarded the Military Cross in 1915. He was promoted to lieutenant and then captain in 1914. In 1915, he became Deputy Assistant Director of Transport, British Expeditionary Force (BEF), and served in that post at General Headquarters for the remainder of the war. He married Winifred Cross in 1917. Their marriage lasted until her death in 1936, and produced two daughters. Gale was promoted to major general in October 1940 and appointed Major General, Administration (MGA), Scottish Command. In 1941 he became Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) to General Sir Alan Brooke, then the Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces and, from December 1941 onwards, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS).

A convalescent Winston Churchill meets the outgoing and incoming Supreme Commanders in the Mediterranean, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to Churchill's right, and Henry Maitland Wilson, to his left. Behind them stand (from left to right), John Whiteley, Air Marshal Arthur Tedder, Brigadier G. S. Thompson, Admiral Sir John Cunningham, unknown, Sir Harold Alexander, Captain M. L. Power, Humfrey Gale, Leslie Hollis, and Eisenhower's chief of staff, Walter Bedell Smith.

On 15 September 1942 Gale was appointed its CAO of American Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ). While the general staff sections of AFHQ were integrated, the British and American administrative systems differed so greatly that separate organisations were established. Gale's job, which Eisenhower called "unique in the history of war", was to coordinate the two. For the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, Gale was tasked with the planning and coordination of the sea convoys. Ships had to depart multiple ports in the United Kingdom and the Middle East on a predefined schedule, loaded with enormous quantities of supplies, equipment, stores and troops. For a time it was feared that demands of the Sicilian operation would be so great that other operations would have to be curtailed. For his contribution to the victory in the Tunisian campaign, he was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in August 1943. He was also appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, and was awarded the United States Legion of Merit.

However, Gale found that while his title at SHAEF was the same, his role was different from that at AFHQ. In the Mediterranean he had had broad responsibility for logistics. In the European theatre, General Sir Bernard Montgomery's Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group controlled its own supply while the American units had Headquarters, Communications Zone under Lieutenant General John C. H. Lee. At SHAEF, Gale had less real control over supply and administration than at AFHQ and his duties mostly involved coordinating the activities of the SHAEF staff sections and serving as chairman of various high-level committees that dealt with matters of supply. Gale was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant-general in August 1944, and in January 1945 he became Colonel Commandant of the Royal Army Service Corps, a position he held until 1954. He was also colonel commandant of the Army Catering Corps from 1946 to 1958. and took up a position with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. In 1954 Harold Macmillan persuaded Gale to become chairman of the Basildon, Essex New Town Development Corporation, a post Gale served in until 1964. Macmillan described Gale as one of the most efficient officers he had ever known. Gale and Minnie lived in La Tour de Peilz, Vaud, Switzerland, where he died on 8 April 1971, at the age of 80.