Home
Period
Second World War
Who was the real James Stagg of Pressure?

Who was the real James Stagg of Pressure?

Leading the cast in D-Day drama Pressure, Andrew Scott stars as James Stagg. Among the meteorologists advising Dwight D Eisenhower on whether to launch Operation Overlord, Stagg’s voice is the most important. Jonathan Wright asks: how close is the character on screen to the real man?

A person wearing a Royal Air Force uniform with brass buttons and a peaked cap sits outside a stone building with classical columns and arched windows. A military vehicle and decorative stone urns stand in the background.

Jonathan Wright

Published: May 29, 2026 at 6:00 PM

Save

Ordered to report to the Allied headquarters at Southwick House in Hampshire, James Stagg leaves behind a scene of domesticity, his wife heavily pregnant. Stagg’s expertise is needed – and the planning of Operation Overlord has to take precedence.

As shown in WW2 movie Pressure, he arrives to find a working environment that doesn’t meet his exacting standards, and he immediately makes his displeasure known, ordering: “Get rid of the piano, thank you.” A clash with brash American meteorologist Irving P Krick becomes inevitable.

Played by Andrew Scott (Fleabag, 1917), Stagg is shown as demanding and difficult but also a brilliant scientist. Crucially, though he constantly warns Eisenhower about the difficulties of predicting weather blowing in from the Atlantic, he is also prepared to back his own insights when he’s sure – or as sure as he can be – about the conditions that lie ahead.

Who was the real James Stagg?

Born in Musselburgh, East Lothian on 30 June 1900, Stagg grew up in modest circumstances. But his seamstress mother, Ellen, had grand plans for her boy, certain that he could make something of his life. While other children went out to play, young James was required to do his homework at the kitchen table.

That may not have been much fun, but Stagg was bright, and learned personal discipline from his boyhood experiences. After enlisting in the Royal Flying Corps, he completed a BSc at Edinburgh in 1920, then became a science teacher before joining Britain’s Meteorological Office in 1924.

Keen to study the Earth’s magnetic fields and to prove his worth, he made it clear that he was happy to be sent to isolated postings. “He is rather slow and deliberate, but he is far-seeing and ambitious,” noted one of his professors, CG Barkla, in a reference.

Group Captain James Stagg, the leading Scottish meteorologist who played a key role in the timing of D-Day (Image by Alamy)

Group Captain James Stagg, the leading Scottish meteorologist who played a key role in the timing of D-Day | Credit: Alamy

Stagg’s career was up and running. Subsequent highlights included leading the British Polar Expedition of Arctic Canada over the winter of 1932–33. After the Second World War, he rose to become director of services at the Met Office.

Was James Stagg really as dour as Pressure suggests?

Yes. Probably reflecting his background, Stagg lacked social graces. He was tall and, in the estimation of the Royal Navy’s Admiral Sir George Creasy, naval commander-in-chief of the Allied Expeditionary Force, his presence when delivering forecasts was akin to “six feet two inches of Stagg and six feet one inch of gloom”.

It’s difficult to say whether Stagg would have been so rude as to call the expansive Krick “a confident moron” as occurs in Pressure, but he was the antithesis of a people-pleaser.

Read more | D-Day: the spearhead of the invasion

Discussing his performance, Andrew Scott has touched on the British meteorologist’s capacity for telling unpalatable truths: “It was very important to me that Stagg never says anything that feels like a movie moment, and that we really understand that this is a human being – and a very specific, quite unusual human being.”

Was Stagg really prevented from seeing his pregnant wife over the 72 hours leading up to D-Day, as depicted in Pressure?

Without giving away too many spoilers, some dramatic licence is at play, but Stagg would certainly have been confined to Southwick House at that time for operational security reasons. It’s true that his wife, Betty, was pregnant in 1944. She was, according to John Ross, writing in The Forecast for D-Day: And the Weatherman behind Ike’s Greatest Gamble, “short and elfin with a pixie twinkle in her eyes”. Like so many husbands who had to leave home because of the war effort, Stagg worried for his family.

A man in a blue shirt and tie speaks on a telephone at a desk, while people in military uniforms gather around a large table in the background.

The couple lived in Richmond Hill, south-west of London. Between January and May 1944, bombing attacks on southern England became more frequent, at least partly in retaliation for Allied raids. Operation Steinbock – dubbed the ‘Baby Blitz’ – consisted of nighttime missions, mostly against London. Stagg must have been concerned.

That campaign was a failure. The Luftwaffe lost 329 aircraft and suffered heavy casualties. In the wake of D-Day, the Germans no longer sent bombers to the UK, instead launching V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets.

Did Stagg really clash with Krick?

Yes – but it’s worth remembering that Pressure has in some key respects streamlined these incidents for dramatic effect. In truth, all of the meteorologists involved were, to a greater or lesser extent, struggling to reach a consensus.

As to why, it’s neatly summed up by a moment in Pressure when Bernard Montgomery, commander of the 21st Army Group – and, it might be added, a man as charmless as Stagg – barks at the meteorologist: “Do not sow doubt, Group Captain!” Whether this actually happened or not, it’s a scene that captures the demands of the top brass for clear information.

A person in a decorated military uniform sits at a desk in a busy operations room, with other uniformed staff and a chalkboard in the background.

In such an environment, there was a risk that Overlord planners would believe the over-confident Krick, who expressed his views without doubt. Despite the frustration it caused, Stagg rightly thought it necessary to study and discuss he data before reaching a decision.

He was right to be cautious. Had D-Day failed, the outcome of the Second World War would have been quite different.

Were Stagg’s methods more sophisticated than those employed by Krick?

In Pressure, Stagg is shown as a man who’s obsessed with data. “If we’ve measured it then I want it,” he says at one point. There’s a suspicion that his language belongs more to the 21st century than the middle of the 20th, but this moment captures a truth. Another of the meteorologists working on D-Day was the Norwegian Sverre Petterssen, a product of the Bergen school of meteorology. Regarded as the basis of much modern forecasting, this school of thought emphasises the importance of mathematical modelling.

In contrast, Krick’s analog forecasting, based on past observations, was unsophisticated and simplistic.

A high‑ranking officer in a dark green uniform speaks with an air‑force officer in blue, while staff work at a large map board behind them.

General Dwight D Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) took the advice of British meteorologist James Stagg (Andrew Scott) in the lead-up to D-Day, as depicted in Pressure | Credit: Alex Bailey/Focus Features/ STUDIOCANAL © 2026 All Rights Reserved

What happened to Stagg after the events of Pressure?

He became a revered figure: it was clear that Eisenhower had been right to listen to him. Stagg received multiple gongs for his work, including the US Legion of Merit awarded for his service in the buildup to D-Day. As his mother had hoped, he attracted a high level of respect and an honoured place in the world.

One of Stagg’s sons, Peter (born 1941), who grew up to be even taller than his lanky father, achieved fame as a rugby union player. He won 28 caps for Scotland as a lock, and three test caps with the British Lions.

Pressure is in UK cinemas from Wednesday 9 September

Authors

Jonathan Wright