Higher Command and Staff Course (HCSC) Staff Ride 08
The HCSC Staff Ride is the climax of a 14-week course aimed at educating the top 2-3% of Colonels, Captains (RN), and Group Captains in higher command and operational art. Taking place predominantly in Northern France and focussed initially on the D-Day landings and subsequent advance to the Rhine, the specific aim of the Staff Ride is to provide, through military historical example, a practical focus for the study and analysis of high command and the planning and execution of future campaigns and major operations, within a combined and joint context. Always a much anticipated conclusion to the course, this year’s was once again a huge success which, for the first time, included a visit to Belgium.
In order to achieve its aim, the Staff Ride is designed to demonstrate some of the enduring characteristics of conflict, focusing at the Operational level. During the course, the students prepare a 5000-word essay related to a particular point in the Staff Ride. This represents their principal written output for the course and requires them to research, in depth, the pertinent historical aspects before then applying the enduring lessons to the contemporary context.
So it was on 25 March 2008 that the HCSC 08 course set off to cross the channel via Southwick House, Tangmere Airfield (used by the RAF during the Battle of Britain and D-Day) and HMS VICTORY, arriving at Pegasus Bridge to review the role of light airborne forces in the D-Day landings.
The next 4 days of the Staff Ride were dedicated to the Normandy Campaign and covered such issues as Air Land and Maritime Integration; Amphibious assaults; SOE; logistics; Deception; Strategic Bombing and Indirect Fire. Before relocating to the east of Paris to focus on earlier campaigns in Europe, the course concluded its review of the Normandy Campaign with a study of the Falaise debate and the extent to which the personalities and egos of senior commanders caused tensions between Allies and Services in 1944; the state of Allied Operational Art in contrast to German and Soviet practice; and how German fighting power was maintained after appalling losses.
After relocating to Reims day 6 of the Staff Ride saw the course studying both the Franco-Prussian War and the German break-out across the Meuse over the period 13-17 May 1940 where Guderian achieved his bold and audacious crossing against all expectations.
After a second night in Reims, day 7 saw the course relocate to Brugge via the battlefields and cemeteries of the 1st World War. These offered a sobering opportunity to explore such issues as mutiny, the British Way in Warfare, and to contrast the failure of 1916 with the Allied success in 1918.
From Brugge the course then visited Zeebrugge and the site of the RN amphibious raid in 1918. This proved a great opportunity not only to explore contemporary focused interventions, but also to demonstrate the importance of maritime trade to the Global economy.
After a visit to La Coupole, a gigantic underground site built by German slave labour in 1943-1944 for the launching of V2 ballistic missiles, the course achieved another first with a visit to Agincourt. A favourite of our course Historian, Professor Richard Holmes, Agincourt offered an excellent backdrop for us to discuss war crimes and commanders’ accountability. The final day of the Staff Ride saw the Course return to the closing stages of the British Expeditionary Forces in May and June 1940, culminating in the evacuation from Dunkirk (Operation DYNAMO).
Having completed the academic element of the Staff Ride at Dunkirk, HCSC 08 staff and students returned to Shrivenham. Enthused by all they had seen, the students dispersed back to the ‘real world’ of operations and staff duties with much to reflect upon and ponder from the last 14 weeks.