Battle of France and service in the UK On 8 August 1939, just a few weeks before the outbreak of the
Second World War, Morgan was promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier and assumed command of the
1st Support Group of Major-General
Roger Evans's
1st Armoured Division. His group was, therefore, in no position to fulfil its normal role supporting the division's armoured brigades and so was sent to reinforce the
51st (Highland) Infantry Division south of the
River Somme. During a confused retreat most of the 1st Support Group was captured along with the 51st Division at
Saint-Valery-en-Caux but the remainder, including Morgan, got away and were evacuated to England. The 1st Armoured Division was subsequently reformed, and became a mobile reserve in south eastern England. It was tasked with counter-attacking an invading German army, and Morgan's 1st Support Group was given two Canadian infantry battalions for this purpose. On 4 November 1940 Morgan was appointed Brigadier General Staff (BGS) at
II Corps, based in
Norfolk. Morgan was not there long, however, as on 28 February 1941 he was promoted to the acting rank of major-general and succeeded Major-General
Charles Allfrey in command of the
Devon and Cornwall County Division, a static formation created for coastal defence, lacking artillery, engineers and divisional troops. The division was serving in
South West England in
Devon and
Cornwall under Lieutenant-General
Harold Franklyn's
VIII Corps. He was with the division for eight months before handing over to Major-General
Godwin Michelmore on 30 October and succeeding Major-General
William Morgan in command of the
55th (West Lancashire) Infantry Division, a first-line TA formation serving in Gloucestershire in
Southern Command. The division, which moved to North Yorkshire under
Northern Command in mid-December, was placed on the Lower Establishment the following month, losing much of its artillery, engineers and divisional troops and receiving a low priority for modern equipment. and took command of I Corps District from Lieutenant-General
Henry Willcox, which had responsibility for the defence of
Lincolnshire and the
East Riding of Yorkshire. In October of that year his headquarters became a mobile formation, was redesignated
I Corps and placed under his American superior,
Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower. On 12 November Morgan's permanent rank was advanced from colonel to major-general (with seniority backdating to 13 November 1941). Morgan's I Corps headquarters was later designated Force 125 and was given command of
Walter Clutterbuck's
1st and
John Hawkesworth's
4th Divisions, and the task of dealing with a German thrust through
Spain to
Gibraltar. Morgan's rank of lieutenant-general was made temporary on 14 May 1943, and he was appointed a
Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) on 2 June.
COSSAC At the
Casablanca Conference in January 1943, the
Combined Chiefs of Staff agreed to establish a staff to plan operations in north west Europe in 1944. It was envisaged that the
Supreme Allied Commander would be British, and the usual practice was for the commander and the chief of staff to be of the same nationality, so it was decided to appoint a British officer for the role of
chief of staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (Designate) (COSSAC), with an American deputy. In March 1943 Morgan became COSSAC. Morgan established his headquarters in
Norfolk House at 31
St James's Square. However, by October 1943, it was clearly too small for COSSAC needs, which called for accommodation for a staff of 320 officers and 600 other ranks. In November and December part of the staff moved to the
South Rotunda, a bombproof structure that had originally been fitted up as an anti-invasion base, which was connected to the various ministries by the
Whitehall Tunnel. Other staff were accommodated at
80 Pall Mall. COSSAC was charged with planning three operations:
Operation Cockade, a
deception operation to keep German forces pinned to the coast;
Operation Rankin, a plan for measures to be taken in the case of a sudden German collapse; and
Operation Overlord, a plan for a full-scale assault on north western Europe. Morgan and his staff worked on the Overlord plan throughout June and the first half of July 1943. He presented it to the
Chiefs of Staff Committee on 15 July. The plan set forth in detail the conditions under which the assault could be made, the area where a landing would be feasible, and the means by which a lodgement on the continent would be developed. On 28 July, a group of the COSSAC staff, headed by Barker, travelled to
Washington D.C. to present the Overlord plan to the U.S.
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and to confer with the U.S.
War Department about the troop basis for the operation and issues related to its
civil affairs and
logistics aspects. Missions were also exchanged with
General Dwight D. Eisenhower's
Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ) in
Algiers to coordinate the plans of offensive action in the Mediterranean and north western Europe in 1944. In October and November, Morgan went to Washington, to discuss the operation with the Combined Chiefs of Staff, accompanied only by Major-General
Nevil Brownjohn and an aide. Morgan met with General
George Marshall, the
Chief of Staff of the United States Army, who instructed him to proceed with planning on the basis that Marshall would be the Supreme Allied Commander and Morgan his chief of staff. Morgan met with
President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the
White House. Roosevelt turned down Morgan's request for the services of
Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Jr. to assist with civil affairs, and also cast doubt on whether Marshall could be spared to become Supreme Allied Commander. While in the United States Morgan visited the
Gettysburg Battlefield and the training camps at
Camp Carrabelle,
Fort Benning,
Camp Mackall and
Fort Bragg. The Combined Chiefs of Staff authorised Morgan to issue orders in the name of the Supreme Allied Commander to the
Commanders in Chief of the Air, Naval and Land Forces, even though they outranked him. In December 1943, when
General Sir Bernard Montgomery, who had just arrived in England after commanding the
British Eighth Army on the
Italian Front, was appointed C-in-C Land Forces for the invasion, he declared that Morgan's original plans were impracticable; they had originally been limited by the availability of landing craft, but Montgomery insisted it would require more men attacking over a wider front. Ultimately, more landing craft were obtained and the invasion was scaled up to Montgomery's satisfaction, at the cost of a month's delay and a reduction in the
Southern France operation. However, all the key features of Morgan's plan remained; the choice of
Normandy as the assault area, the use of
Mulberry harbours, the deployment of American forces on the right and British on the left, the use of airborne troops to cover the flanks, and some form of diversionary operation in Southern France.
SHAEF When Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Allied Commander in January 1944 the COSSAC team was absorbed into
SHAEF. Eisenhower brought his chief of staff for AFHQ, Major General
Walter Bedell Smith, and moved the headquarters to
Bushy Park. Morgan was offered command of
XIII Corps in Italy but declined in favour of becoming one of Smith's three deputies. His responsibilities covered Intelligence and Operations. Morgan coordinated the work of various SHAEF divisions and deputised for Bedell Smith when he was absent. "As the campaign progressed," Morgan later wrote, "it became more difficult for us British at SHAEF to provide explanation, as we were continually called upon to do, for the attitude and behaviour of the British authorities as exemplified by their chosen representative in the field." Senior British officers at SHAEF, notably Morgan,
Kenneth Strong and
Jock Whiteley remained loyal to Eisenhower. This cast a pall over their careers after the war, when Montgomery became
Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS). After the war Smith described Morgan as his British alter ego, "a man I wouldn't willingly have dispensed with". Morgan served in this role until SHAEF was dissolved in June 1945. He was appointed
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in August 1944 "in recognition of distinguished services in connection with the invasion of Normandy". The United States government awarded him the
Legion of Merit in April 1945, and the
Army Distinguished Service Medal in 1948 for his services. ==Post-war career==