soc.history.war.world-war-ii

"Hal Hanig" wrote in message
news:dhVFj.2582$gx.1082@newsfe07.lga... (March 24)

> That may well be true, and it would be consistent with the original
> statement made about the high regard in which he was held by his fellow
> Brits. I have yet to hear from anyone from what was the Commonwealth in
> those days, i.e. - Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa,
etc.
> on the subject.

My post in this thread dated March 21 cites a recent Canadian source.

> Hans Christian Hoff wrote:
> > One from time to time get the impression that some of the best military
> > minds of WWII (on the allied side at least) were not commanders in the
> > field; Marshall and Brooke spring immediately to mind.

HCH seems wrong about Brooke. He commanded a
division or corps in France in 1940 and because of his
performance there (compared with other British generals)
was in charge of the land defence of England 1940-41,
later becoming CIGS (equivalent to Marshall.) Brooke
thought he had been promised command of the Normandy
invasion and was initially hurt that that post went to
Eisenhower, who had not Brooke's field experience: but
came to agree SHAEF had to be an American since
the USA was providing most of the men and munitions,
no one was suitable to replace him as CIGS (i.e. no British
general had both Brooke's status and the personality to
moderate Churchill's passions on a daily and continuous
basis) thus accepted his lot (blowing off steam only in
his private diary, later published. This interesting document
suggests the main function of a top-level i.e. political
commander is selecting which generals to place in
command of armies and corps.)
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)