young officers at GHQ, Captain Bill Williams and Major James Ewart, to serve on his staff. Ewart could speak German fluently and Williams, as a trained historian, was accustomed to drawing information from disparate sources together to produce a larger picture. According to de Guingand, "Ewart and Williams were an ideal combination. They understood each other perfectly. Both had first-class brains, both were university dons and hated soldiering as a profession!" De Guingand had access to accurate intelligence through Ultra codebreaking, but its interpretation always required skill and care. De Guingand made use of the Long Range Desert Group to confirm reports from other sources. Indications that the Germans and Italians were about to initiate what became the Battle of Gazala piled up in May 1942, allowing de Guingand to provide advance warning. In June 1942, he correctly predicted the Axis capture of Tobruk. In July 1942, after the First Battle of El Alamein, de Guingand was appointed the Eighth Army's Brigadier General Staff (Operations) vice Brigadier Jock Whiteley. The staff arrangements at the Eighth Army headquarters were confused; General Sir Claude Auchinleck was both Commander-in-Chief Middle East and commander of the Eighth Army. Dorman-Smith, his DCGS in the former role, was present at Eighth Army headquarters, and as a major-general he outranked Whiteley. This created two lines of authority at the headquarters. De Guingand persuaded Auchinleck that Dorman-Smith would be more useful back in Cairo. De Guingand's General Staff branch had four GSO1s, Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Mainwaring (operations), Lieutenant-Colonel L. M. (Spud) Murphy (intelligence), Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Richardson (plans) and Lieutenant-Colonel David Belchem (staff duties). To assist Murphy, de Guingand brought Williams from GHQ as the GSO2 (Intelligence). Chief of staff to Montgomery When Montgomery was appointed to command the Eighth Army in August 1942 he summoned de Guingand to meet him. He later wrote Montgomery had sent a request to the new Commander-in-Chief Middle East, General Sir Harold Alexander, that several officers be sent out from the UK, including Brigadier Frank Simpson, who had served as his chief of staff in the 3rd Division during the Battle of France in 1940 and at V Corps and XII Corps in the UK. Montgomery warned de Guingand that he might be replaced, but that if this occurred, he would attempt to secure him a good position in the UK. He recommended that de Guingand take over as Director of Military Intelligence (DMI)