M. E. Clifton James
Encyclopedia
Worthing
Worthing is a large seaside town with borough status in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, forming part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation. It is situated at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester...
, England) was an actor and soldier, notable for his resemblance
Look-alike
A look-alike is a person who closely resembles another person. In popular Western culture, a look-alike is a person who bears a close physical resemblance to a celebrity, politician or member of royalty. Many look-alikes earn a living by making guest appearances at public events or performing on...
to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. This was used by British intelligence as part of a deception campaign in 1944.
Life
Clifton James was born in Perth, AustraliaPerth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
, the youngest son of notable Australian public servant John Charles Horsey James
John Charles Horsey James
John Charles Horsey James was a magistrate in Western Australia and the inaugural president of the Western Australian Cricket Association from 1885....
, and his wife Rebecca Catherine Clifton. After serving in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
he took up acting and at the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
volunteered his services to the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
as an entertainer. Instead of being assigned to ENSA
Entertainments National Service Association
The Entertainments National Service Association or ENSA was an organisation set up in 1939 by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson to provide entertainment for British armed forces personnel during World War II. ENSA operated as part of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes...
as he had hoped, Clifton James was commissioned into the Royal Army Pay Corps
Royal Army Pay Corps
The Royal Army Pay Corps was a former corps of the British Army responsible for administering all financial matters. It was amalgamated into the Adjutant General's Corps in 1992....
in 1940 and eventually posted to Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
. Here, his acting seemed to be limited to his membership of the Pay Corps Drama and Variety Group.
Operation Copperhead
About seven weeks before D-DayD-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
in 1944, a British Lieutenant-Colonel, J.V.B. Jervis-Reid, noticed Clifton James's resemblance to Montgomery while he was reviewing photographs in a newspaper; James, it seemed had 'rescued' a failing patriotic show by appearing in it, quite briefly, as 'Monty.' MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
decided to exploit the resemblance to confuse German intelligence. James was contacted by Lieutenant-Colonel David Niven
David Niven
James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...
, who worked for the Army's film unit, and was asked to come to London on the pretext of making a film. The ruse was part of a wider deception which aimed to divert troops from northern France, by convincing the Germans that an Allied invasion of Southern France
Southern France
Southern France , colloquially known as le Midi is defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean, and Italy...
(Operation Dragoon
Operation Dragoon
Operation Dragoon was the Allied invasion of southern France on August 15, 1944, during World War II. The invasion was initiated via a parachute drop by the 1st Airborne Task Force, followed by an amphibious assault by elements of the U.S. Seventh Army, followed a day later by a force made up...
) would precede a northern invasion.
The plan was code-named Operation Copperhead
Operation Copperhead
Operation Copperhead was a small British-run deception operation run during World War II.It was one of many deceptions run prior to the invasion of Normandy . For instance, General Patton was supposedly in command of a fictitious army massing for a crossing to Calais...
and Clifton James was assigned to Montgomery's staff to learn his speech and mannerisms. Despite the problems that he had with alcohol (Montgomery did not drink at all), and the differences in personality, the project continued. He also had to give up smoking. Clifton James had lost his right-hand middle finger in the First World War and so a prosthetic finger was made.
On 25 May 1944 Clifton James flew from RAF Northolt
RAF Northolt
RAF Northolt is a Royal Air Force station situated in South Ruislip, east by northeast of Uxbridge in the London Borough of Hillingdon, West London. Approximately north of London Heathrow Airport, the station also handles a large number of private civil flights...
to Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
on Churchill's
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
private aircraft. At a reception at the governor-general's house, hints were made about "Plan 303", a plan to invade southern France. German intelligence picked this up and ordered agents to find out what they could about Plan 303.
Clifton James then flew to Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
where over the next few days he made a round of public appearances with General Maitland Wilson
Henry Maitland Wilson, 1st Baron Wilson
Field Marshal Henry Maitland Wilson, 1st Baron Wilson, GCB, GBE, DSO , also known as "Jumbo" Wilson, saw active service in the Second Boer War and First World War, and became a senior British general in the Middle East and Mediterranean during the Second World War...
, the Allied commander in the Mediterranean theatre. Clifton James was then secretly flown to Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
where he stayed until the invasion in Normandy was well underway. He then returned to his job after an absence of five weeks.
Various reasons were put forward for the speedy conclusion of the operation (including the suggestion that Clifton James was seen in Gibraltar smoking and drunk), though the most likely explanation is the one put forward by Dennis Wheatley
Dennis Wheatley
Dennis Yates Wheatley was an English author. His prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors from the 1930s through the 1960s.-Early life:...
(who was part of the British deception efforts during the war) in The Deception Planners published in the 1980s. In it, he states that the operation was wound up successfully, its purpose accomplished. He also suggests that it ended "rather pathetically" and that Clifton James was simply hidden out of sight in a hotel in Algiers with a whisky bottle for company.
He was to end his war still in the Pay Corps, apparently forgotten, having to lie about his missing five weeks, having been (according to Wheatley) "treated shabbily" with no official recognition for his services.
I Was Monty's Double
In 1954 Clifton James published his exploits in a book entitled - I Was Monty's DoubleI Was Monty's Double (film)
I Was Monty's Double is a 1958 film made by Associated British Picture Corporation . It was directed by John Guillermin, from a screenplay adapted by Bryan Forbes.- Plot :...
- aided by a ghostwriter
Ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other texts that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, magazine articles, or other written...
. It seemed to strike a chord with the British public at the time, as quite a few wartime secrets were entering print under the Ten Year rule
Ten Year Rule
The Ten Year Rule was a British government guideline, first adopted in August 1919, that the armed forces should draft their estimates "on the assumption that the British Empire would not be engaged in any great war during the next ten years"....
. It was even parodied by Spike Milligan
Spike Milligan
Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...
, in concept if not in plot, in the Goon Show episode 'I was Monty's Treble' ("So, we need forty thousand Monty's doubles, eh? We'll have to form regiments!").
The book became the basis for the script of the 1958 film of the same name, starring John Mills
John Mills
Sir John Mills CBE , born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills, was an English actor who made more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades.-Life and career:...
and Cecil Parker
Cecil Parker
Cecil Parker was an English character and comedy actor with a distinctive husky voice, who usually played supporting roles in his 91 films made between 1928 and 1969....
with Clifton James playing himself and Montgomery. The script was 'tweaked' for effect; 'Operation Copperhead' became 'Operation Hambone,' and additional elements of comedy, danger and intrigue were added, but it largely follows the story given in the book, and gave Clifton James a deserved if belated recognition, and a sort of screen immortality. He died on 8 May 1963 at his home on Thorn Road in Worthing
Worthing
Worthing is a large seaside town with borough status in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, forming part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation. It is situated at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester...
Sussex, aged 65.
The Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
of 9 May 1963 quotes Viscount Montgomery, then himself 75, as saying of James; "He was not a friend of mine. Only met him once. Of course he observed me a great deal. He did a very good job, a very good job, and fooled the Germans at a critical time of the war. I am very sorry to hear of his death."