When Frank Bellamy worked for Battle!

An image on the 'Battle Fans' Facebook group caught my eye the other day...here's the cover in question...

...so why did it catch my eye? Well I immediately recognised the soldier in the bottom half of the image as being drawn by Frank Bellamy - the question is where did I recognise it from?

My instinct was that it was from either The happy warrior or Montogmery of Alamein (both stories that appeared on the back page of the original Eagle comic). The quickest way to check was to grab this book off the shelf...

...and have look to see what I could find...quickly it became clear that the story was from Bellamy's work on the life of Montgomery of Alamein rather than Churchill.

The story began in volume 13, issue 10 and ran to volume 13 issue 27 - so 18 issues in total. The image is taken from episode 6 of the story (so volume 13, issue 15 - 14th April 1962).

If you're looking to collect this book note that you normally find 'High Command' in softback but it was also published in hardback (much harder to find) and was even, below, translated into Dutch...

Interestingly Steve MacManus commented on the photo to say "...This cover might well have been one of Doug Church’s composites, where he picked artwork from the art library and reused it".

So there you have it 5th May 1979 saw Frank Bellamy grace the cover of Battle - an unlikely, and to me previously unknown, partnership.