soc.history.war.world-war-ii

"WaltBJ" wrote

>I have not read the latest issue of Alanbrooke's Diaries. I did read
> the issue that came out oh about 20 years or so ago. The impression I
> got from that series was he kept saying "I could have done better". I
> was not impressed.

Bryant's books ('The Turn of the Tide' and 'Victory in the West') were
Bryant's own narratives interposed with selective extracts from Alanbrooke's
diaries. The narrative wasn't very good and it has come to light that the
source material was badly used by Bryant. The more recent publication "War
Diaries 1939-1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke", edited by Alex Danchev
and Dan Todman, is just the authentic text with useful annotations.

As other posters have pointed out, these diaries were never written for
publication and are warts-and-all personal remarks set down in the heat of
the moment. They are not a balanced and propagandist document like Churchill
or Eisenhower's memoirs. They help to give a picture of what it was like to
be a key player in the British war effort and throw some useful illumination
on some vexing issues, but they are not a general history of WW2.