Two exhibitions paying tribute to Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein are to be opened.

A Montgomery room devoted to his military career is planned for the Imperial War Museum in London.

And an extension is to be built at the museum's branch in Duxford, Cambridgeshire, to re-create one of his wartime field headquarters.

News of the exhibitions come as the war hero's son said he feared his father's contribution to victory in World War II was being forgotten.

The current Viscount Montgomery, 71, who lives in London, said he had been calling for a exhibition to honour his father's work for many years.

'Danger of forgetting'

He said: "Many people are surprised that more than 50 years after the end of the war there is no exhibition in his memory and this is something I have wanted for a very long time.

"I think people are in danger of forgetting what he did and what Europe owes him and I hope these exhibitions will stop that happening."

The museum projects are due to open in 2002, the 60th anniversary of Montgomery taking command of the Eighth Army in Africa, which he led to victory at El Alamein before landing in Italy.

Field Marshall Lord Bramall, former Chief of the Defence Staff, who served under Montgomery during the D-Day landings, said: "He (Montgomery) is, in my opinion, Britain's greatest professional soldier since Wellington.

"(Alamein) was the turning point in the war as far as Britain was concerned. Before it, as Churchill said, we had scarcely had a victory and after it scarcely a defeat."