Alan Brooke: Churchill's Right-Hand Critic: A Reappraisal of Lord Alanbrooke by Andrew Sangster

Author:Andrew Sangster [Sangster, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: World War II, Military, Biography & Autobiography, General, Europe, history, Great Britain, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Military
ISBN: 9781612009681
Google: nLHyzQEACAAJ
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2021-04-05T23:40:36.458520+00:00

Back to Routine

On his return to London it was a matter of back to the usual routine, picking up work waiting for him, but more to the point, studying the paperwork he had brought with him which needed turning into ‘facts and action’. The first COS was a matter of finding a date for invading Sicily, Operation Torch. The prime minister and American president had both expressed an interest in the timing. At the next meeting they started looking at June instead of July, but it was mainly dependent on the Germans being cleared out of North Africa by the beginning of May. A few days later Admiral Ramsay returned from North Africa, bringing the news that Eisenhower did not think the proposed dates were right, as he could not see that the Germans would be ‘cleaned up’ before May.

The routine work made Brooke feel he had not been away. He met Canadian leader Harry Crerar who felt the Canadians needed to fight for imperial and political reasons. They had refused to fight in the Middle East for their own political reasons, and the Dieppe raid had cost them badly through no fault of their own. It was a situation with which Brooke agreed. He found time to lunch with Benita’s sister Madeline, but he was more concerned that Churchill was down with a fever, stating that ‘I hope it won’t be bad.’ He saw Churchill that day and recommended to him that Auchinleck should not be given command of the Iraq–Persia sector; Brooke had not been impressed by his old friend. It has often been hinted that Auchinleck fell from grace because he stood up to Churchill, and Brooke was often commended for protecting Auchinleck. It is therefore worth noting that Brooke’s diary clearly indicated that although Auchinleck was respected by so many, he was in Brooke’s estimation somewhat falling short in his allotted tasks.

He met the new American General Andrews to discuss American reinforcements, which had not started to blossom despite the reassurances at Casablanca. He also had an uncomfortable meeting with some French leaders who wanted supplies dropped to the various Resistance groups. Brooke wrote: ‘I told them what I thought of the French realisation of the true situation, and of their failure to get together to fight Germany instead of squabbling amongst themselves.’8 This seemed a little unfair but Brooke could be quite harsh at times; he had probably had enough of the French squabbles in North Africa, and it was not until just prior to D-Day in 1944 that he saw the French resistance as being of any true value.* He was a traditional military man and did not understand the sacrifices made by resistance fighters and partisans. He knew himself that his outbursts could be dictated by his frame of mind, once writing that ‘it seems more probably that I was in a peevish mood and childish mood myself’.9 Later, the following month, he wrote ‘and I grew peevish towards the end of the meeting’.

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