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War Diaries 1939-1945

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This book details everything left out of earlier biographies. We learn his true attitudes about Winston Churchill, the good and the bad, and also about Eisenhower, Montgomery, Alexander, Roosevelt, George Marshall, and others. He had little use for most of the American officers' military skills, but Eisenhower rose in his esteem over time. This book is a necessity for scholars about World War II. For instance, Alanbrooke notes that FDR was urging an early date for the landing in North Africa in large part to help the Democratic Party in the election of November 1942, and it gives rise to the question how much that election had to do with the Allies choosing to invade North Africa. (It was planned to begin earlier than it did, but had to be postponed repeatly for lack of boats, or the weather, etc. It did not finally occur until a few days after the election, in which the Democrats lost dozens of House seats as FDR had feared)... There are not many places the scholar can learn all the facts that Alanbrooke knew, least of all in his 40-year earlier biography based on selected parts of the same diaries. This is vastly better.