Lieutenant General Sir Charles Walter Allfrey, KBE, CB, DSO, MC & Bar, DL (24 October 1895 – 2 November 1964) was a senior British Army officer who served in both the world wars, most notably during the Second World War as General Officer Commanding of V Corps in North Africa and Italy from 1942 to 1944.

[1][5][6] Allfrey was awarded the Military Cross (MC) in 1918 for keeping his battery in action for an extended period of time, despite being under direct machine gun and artillery fire from the enemy.

He kept up a steady rate of fire with a proportion of his guns on the barrage, and with the remainder run out of their pits engaged the attacking infantry with open sights.

[1]He was promoted to acting major on 17 December 1917 and reverted to his permanent rank of captain on 18 February 1919, by which time the war had ended due to the Armistice with Germany.

[13] At the start of the Second World War, in September, Allfrey held a senior staff position, as a GSO1, in the United Kingdom, continuing in this role in France with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

On 19 July 1940, after having participated in the Battle of France and the Dunkirk evacuation, and after a brief spell as CCRA at IV Corps, under Lieutenant General Claude Auchinleck, he was promoted to the acting rank of major general[15] to soon took over from Major-General William Green in command of South-Western Area, part of Southern Command,[1] which was responsible for the defence of the counties of Devon and Cornwall in the event of a German invasion, and was then, in the aftermath of Dunkirk, considered highly likely.

[14] Also serving in XII Corps were the 44th (Home Counties) and 56th (London) Divisions, commanded respectively by Major Generals Brian Horrocks and Montagu Stopford, both of whom had been among Allfrey's fellow instructors at the Staff College, Camberley before the war.

However, it relinquished this role upon being sent to Scotland in July, where it took under command the 6th Armoured Division, under Major General Charles Keightley (who had been a fellow instructor at the Staff College some years before), and the 4th and 78th Infantry Divisions, commanded by Major Generals John Hawkesworth (another of Allfrey's fellow Staff College instructors) and Vyvyan Evelegh, respectively.

[14] Allfrey led his corps overseas to French North Africa in late November, a few weeks after the invasion, activating it on 5 December, where it took command of all British ground units in Tunisia − the 1st Parachute Brigade under Brigadier Edwin Flavell, and the 6th Armoured and 78th Infantry Divisions, along with commandos and elements of the US 1st Armored Division under Major General Orlando Ward.

[14] By the time of Allfrey's arrival the run for Tunis had quite clearly failed, due to the Axis forces having brought in significant reinforcements, and the campaign was beginning to turn into a stalemate.

On 9 December an attack planned was cancelled and Allfrey tried to arrange for the French holding the town of Medjez el Bab to be relieved, he also believed, and subsequently ordered, Longstop Hill, overlooking the road to Tunis, to be abandoned.

[14] In January 1943, Major-General Keightley's 6th Armoured Division, still part of V Corps, participated in an action at Bou Arada, and resisted a major German attack.

Supported by the 25th Army Tank Brigade, and later reinforced by Major-General Walter Clutterbuck's 1st Infantry Division, V Corps was, for almost a month, engaged in some of the hardest fighting of the Tunisian campaign to date.

Horrocks, as previously mentioned, had been another one of Allfrey's fellow instructors at the Staff College before the war and thought highly of him, later writing in his autobiography that he "was one of the most popular officers in the British Army", and that "nobody could have been more helpful.

[22] Despite Allfrey's corps playing a relatively small role in the final stages of the campaign, which ended in mid-May with the surrender of almost 250,000 Axis troops, Allfrey, along with Major General Francis Tuker, GOC of the 4th Indian Division, was able to accept the surrender of German Colonel General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim, commanding the Panzer Army Africa.

With the onset of severe winter weather and indomitable German resistance, the fighting involved some of the bitterest encountered by the Allies thus far in the Italian campaign and casualties were very heavy on both sides.

[21] The line of the Sangro was breached in late November, but Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey's XIII Corps was brought into the battle.

[21] V Corps role was limited, as most of the Allied resources were transferred to the Western side of Italy, to Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark's American Fifth Army, and was to hold a 30-mile sector of the front with just two divisions.

[29] Leese, doubtless influenced by what Montgomery had said of Allfrey, tried through the first few months of 1944 to get him sacked, and, as Richard Mead writes, it is significant that, during the Second Battle of Monte Cassino in March, rather than using Allfrey's by now highly experienced HQ, Leese ordered Lieutenant General Sir Bernard Freyberg, GOC of the 2nd New Zealand Division, to create a new, and therefore completely green and inexperienced, HQ for the battle.