The Bird Watcher As Hero

THE TURN OF THE TIDE (624 pp.)--Arthur Bryant--Doubleday ($6.95).

Who was the architect of victory in World War II? Churchill? Roosevelt? General Marshall? Eisenhower? None of those guesses hit the mark, according to British Historian Sir Arthur Bryant. His choice is a stooped, round-shouldered retired British officer who looks not unlike a solemn parrot, is addicted to bird watching, and lives quietly with his wife in the gardener's cottage of his estate in Hampshire. Most U.S. readers would stare blankly if asked to identify Field Marshal Alan Brooke, now Lord Alanbrooke. But Bryant's The Turn of the Tide, based on Alanbrooke's wartime diaries, has already sold 70,000 copies in England and has whipped up strong resentment among military men both in Britain and the U.S. The book makes its hero seem to have been by all odds the war's greatest soldier --though he was mostly a desk soldier. The work may irritate more than it illuminates, but it is clearly one of the important books about World War II.

Special Pleading. When Lieut. General Alan Brooke went to the Continent as a corps commander in 1939, he began to keep a diary for his wife. Standing alone, his notes would have been interesting and not very readable. But Viscount Alanbrooke has been lucky in having the help of Co-Author Bryant, one of the most readable historians now living (Unfinished Victory, The Age of Elegance). Bryant has written what is, in effect, a narrative account of the war that adroitly interpolates his hero's diaries and notes. But unlike Bryant's objective histories, The Turn of the Tide has an air of special pleading, works too hard at the job of building up Alanbrooke and low-rating those who, like General Marshall and Admiral King, were often in disagreement with him.

As Churchill's Chief of the Imperial General Staff (from 1941 to 1946), Brooke worked more closely with the Prime Minister than anyone else, and much of the book is designed to make it plain that, without Alan Brooke, Winnie would certainly have gone off the rails with catastrophic frequency. Most of Bryant's story will be old hat to those who have read Churchill's history. Eisenhower's Crusade in Europe and Robert Sherwood's Roosevelt and Hopkins. What gives it immediacy and historical stature is the day-by-day evidence of the reticent professional soldier who made his plan, stuck to it throughout and often persuaded seemingly stronger men that he was right.

Only MacArthur. Bryant and his hero claim that it was Brooke who insisted on the North African and Italian campaign against the wishes of Marshall and Eisenhower, who wanted an early and massive blow struck on the French coast. Brooke's idea was to get the German armies dispersed on the whole perimeter of Fortress Europe and so take the heat off Russia and lessen German power to push the Allies into the sea when the time came for the Normandy invasion. But no one had the wisdom to go along. Not Churchill, who was constantly asking for attacks in Norway, the Balkans and in the Pacific (which would, of course, fritter away resources). Not Eisenhower, who in Brooke's view spent too much time on political matters. And not Admiral King, who could, after all, see nothing but Japanese and wanted the U.S. to go all-out in the Pacific before Hitler was brought down. No one, in fact, had 20-20 military vision but "Brookie," and if he had been listened to sooner the war might have ended long before it did.

That is Bryant's and Alanbrooke's story. In the U.S., Alanbrooke's estimate of his American colleagues will not make pleasant or convincing reading.

EISENHOWER: "I had little confidence in his having the ability to handle the military situation . . . Tactics, strategy and command were never his strong points."

"VINEGAR JOE" STILWELL: "A stout-hearted fighter suitable to lead a brigade of Chinese scally-wags . . . little military knowledge and no strategic ability."

SECRETARY OF WAR STIMSON : "Limited strategic outlook," and Author Bryant adds: "High-minded but dogmatic septuagenarian.''

PATTON : "A character," charged with goofing at a critical point in Sicily.

The fighting done by U.S. troops any where is barely acknowledged. Only Mac-Arthur, whom Alanbrooke extravagantly admired from afar, comes off well: "I have often wondered since the war how different matters might have been if I had had MacArthur instead of Marshall to deal with. From everything I saw of him I put him down as the greatest general of the last war."

Bitter Man. While putting Brookie on a pedestal, Historian Bryant failed to notice that someone else was barging in to steal his own show. If there is a real hero in The Turn of the Tide, it is that fabulous old original, Winston Churchill. Bryant and Alanbrooke complain about Churchill's ornery demands for action, his espousal of half-baked military adventures that had disaster written all over them, his frequent bullying of subordinates. But over and over again Alanbrooke bursts out in admiration of his chief: "He is the most difficult man I have ever served, but thank God for having given me the opportunity of trying to serve such a man in a crisis such as the one this country is going through ... But traveling and working for Winston is not a rest cure; it is like living on the lip of a volcano and never knowing when it is going to erupt next." It is not the grey Alanbrooke who remains in the reader's memory but the great Prime Minister with his marvelous flair, tempers and steadfastness.

When his story ends at the start of the Italian campaign, Brooke is a bitterly disappointed man. With Ike having commanded the North African show, it seemed certain that a Briton would become Supreme Commander in Europe. In fact, Churchill had already promised the post to Brooke. Eisenhower, with a generosity that astonished Brooke, said it ought to be either Brooke or Ike's own hero, George Marshall. Brooke, by his own admission, was itching for the honor, and when it went to Eisenhower his bitterness was poured into his diary: "I felt no longer necessarily tied to Winston and free to assume this Supreme Command which he had already promised me on three separate occasions. It was a crushing blow to hear from him that he was now handing over this appointment to the Americans . . . Not for one moment did he realise what this meant to me. He offered no sympathy, no regrets at having had to change his mind, and dealt with the matter as if it were one of minor importance." Perhaps in a larger context than Brookie could grasp, it was.

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