Armoured Crusader : A Biography of Major-General Sir Percy Hobart

by Kenneth John Macksey, B.H. Liddell Hart (foreword)

Percy Hobart was one of the greatest military thinkers of his time. Sidelied by the military establishment, he was brought out of retirement at the insistence of Winston Churchill in the lead up to Overlord. Hobart provided the British part of the Allied landing forces with all kinds of unique variants of established military vehicles, specially designed to overcome the peculiar obstacles expected in a beach landing in such hevily defended territory.

Genres: World War II

348 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2004

About the author

British author and historian who specialized in military history and military biography, particularly of the Second World War. Macksey was commissioned in the Royal Armoured Corps and served during the Second World War (earning the Military Cross under the command of Percy Hobart). Macksey later wrote the (authoritative) biography of Hobart.Macksey gained a permanent commission in 1946, was transferred to the Royal Tank Regiment in 1947, reached the rank of major in 1957 and retired from the Army in 1968.

Amongst many other books, Macksey wrote two volumes of alternate history, one, entitled Invasion, dealt with a successful invasion of England by Germany in 1940 and the other describing a NATO–Warsaw Pact clash in the late 1980s. The latter book was done under contract to the Canadian Forces and focuses on the Canadian role in such a conflict. He was an editor and contributor to Greenhill's Alternate Decisions series since 1995.

In Macksey's Guderian – Panzer General, he refuted the view of historian Sir Basil Liddell-Hart regarding Hart's influence on the development of German Tank Theory in the years leading up to 1939.

Reviews

[John Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always wanted to read about Hobo particularily because of those fiendish machines from the beaches of Normandy! However I was a little dissapointed on reading this book. The author seems at pains, certainly at the beginning of the narrative, to show that Percy was totally misunderstood and that the whole world seemed to be against him, even though he was right! Certainly there is solid evidence to demonstrate certain aspects of this- the "all armour" concept- but seems inconceivable that it was as black and white as this. I suspect that since the author worked closely with the major's wife this may have something to do with this, but understandable.
The books does settle down latterly and gives a good account of the run up and subsequent analysis of the "funnies" at Normandy, looking at relative performances of the British/Canadian beaches with the funnies and the US beaches without- with the exception of the DD Shermans.
I think the book would have benefitted from the dealing with aspects of his life and work not in chronological order- as followed- but in sections such as his personal life, postions in the Military, his strategic/tactical thinking and so on as many elements repeated itself throughout the book- such as falling out with the various ministries of supply and war. This would also have been useful to focus in on his core ideas and militray thinking in a specif chapter/s rather than trying to go back over an enitre book to dig out key elements.
Certainly worth a read but perhaps there are better accounts out there.

[Robin Braysher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A week in which I visited the Tank Museum in Bovington for the first time in about 55 years, seemed the ideal time to read this book. I have to say, I have a new military hero: Percy Hobart. It's a fascinating read about a scientific and thoughtful soldier, a passionate enthusiast for armoured warfare and a man who was considered to be not quite the right sort of 'chap' - so lots for the British military establishment to dislike. That he persevered in spite of multiple setbacks and, ultimately, triumphed with 79th Armoured Division - with the training of of 7th and 11th Armoured Divisions along the way - in the final campaign in NW Europe is a testament to his character and single-mindedness. He sounds like a devil to work for, but cared for his men and was not wasteful of their lives and appreciated that most were simply 'civvies in uniform'. An entertaining and illuminating read about a man who should be better known and his achievements, such as his contribution to the Normandy landings, better appreciated.

[Peter Brickwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a hard copy of this book whereas I usually listen to material of this kind. I expected it to be a bit of a slog but it turned out to be an accessible read with a lot of interesting information. Hobo’s “funnies” are well remember in the stories of D-Day but their extensive use and development during the invasion of Germany is, in my experience, less well known. I would have enjoyed more detailed explanations of how Hobart trained the “Desert Rats” and the “Black Bulls” but overall this is a very informative book that added considerably to my knowledge of the Second World War.

[Martin Samuels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Percy Hobart, known to all as 'Hobo', was one of the most influential British armoured theorists and commanders between the two world wars. He then went on to set up and train both 7th and 11th Armoured Divisions, before being removed from command shortly before they were due to see combat for the first time. Hobo then set up 79th Armoured Division, soon after converted to become the home of Britain's specialised armoured vehicles. To his great satisfaction, he was finally permitted to lead the formation through the campaign in North-Western Europe, from the D-Day landings to the end of the war. As if that wasn't enough, Hobo then played a central part, alongside Liddell Hart, in writing the highly influential history of the Royal Tank Regiment and its predecessors.

Hobart clearly merits a full-scale biography, and this Macksey (himself a former RTR officer) sought to provide. Military biographies can be dispiriting books to read, as they so often end up as little more than an account of successive postings and descriptions of battles, with little sense of why the subject of the biography progressed in his career when others did not (or vice versa) or how their approach or contribution to the course of the battles in which they took part was of importance. It is therefore with considerable pleasure that the reader of Armoured Crusader is given a real insight into Hobo's thinking and intellectual approach to his military calling.

Although Hobo quite deliberately never wrote his autobiography, Macksey shows clearly that the materials for such a work were plentiful, from Hobo's extensive personal correspondence to the official papers produced by Hobo and his colleagues in their various postings, supplemented by vignettes from those who knew him. The resulting volume shows the full complexity of a man who could not be called a great thinker, but whose understanding of the nature of armoured warfare at the tactical and operational level was profound. Macksey also reveals a man who was capable of great tenderness and self-deprecation, but who was equally renowned for his irascible temperament, which made him many powerful enemies.

Perhaps what is most striking, however, is the way in which Macksey brings out both Hobart's extraordinary ability as a trainer, repeatedly building highly effective formations from scratch, and also the great contribution made by the 'funnies' of 79th Armoured Division. In fact, the reader is left with the sense that history has rather unfairly dismissed the last eight months of the campaign in NW Europe, following the break-out from Normandy, with only Arnhem and the Battle of the Bulge as minor highlights in an otherwise predictable course of events. While it is certainly true that the German forces were much reduced in both quantity and quality during that period, they fought with skill and tenacity, such that the British (and their allies) had to develop real technical proficiency to defeat them, notwithstanding their huge logistical superiority.

In short, an excellent biography of a key figure. It is a pity that Hobo's contemporaries, Pile, Broad and Lindsay, have yet to be served with equal skill.