INVASION OF EUROPE

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25660, 24 November 1948, Page 5

INVASION OF EUROPE

GENERAL EISENHOWER WRITES BOOK

SOME BRITISH REVIEWS CRITICAL (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

(Rec. 8.30 p.mj LONDON, Nov. 23. Although General Eisenhower’s book “Crusade in Europe" will not be Sublished in Britain for several weeks ie release of the book in the United States has prompted critical references by British reviewers, and it is already obvious that yet another controversy about the conduct of the war is beginning. The military correspondent of the “Sunday Times” says: “One is forced to the conclusion that General Eisenhower considers the war was really won by America, that every American view was right and every British idea wrong.” The correspondent concedes that General Eisenhower has earned a place in history by his work as Supreme Commander, but he argues that the American leader made a mistake in descending into the tactical field and insisting on commanding the land armies himself. .

“He was not in any way a battle commander,” says the correspondent. “He' had had no previous experience, and in fact he did not understand how to command in the field.” Statements Disputed The correspondent contradicts several of General Eisenhower’s assertions, notably his statement that Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery wanted to secure tactical co-ordinating command of all ground forces in Western Europe for himself. What Field-Marshal Montgomery said, says the correspondent, was that if he was not acceptable to General Eisenhower he was willing to serve under the American, General Bradley. It was General Eisenhower, according to the correspondent, who refused this offer. Of the controversy over relations between Montgomery and General Eisenhower after the Normandy landing- the correspondent says: “The truth will never be known until Field-Marshal Montgomery is at liberty to publish all the documents that passed between himself and General Eisenhower. It is known, however, that some of the instructions given by General Eisenhower from a headquarters 500 miles behind the fighting fronts were completely out of touch with the administrative situation.

“Field-Marshal Montgomery’s plans to exploit the German disorganisation after the Falaise battle would undoubtedly have shortened the war if General Eisenhower had allowed them to be carried out. They would also have brought the Allied forces into Berlin, Vienna, and Prague before the Russians.” (General Eisenhower’s book shows that Mr Churchill planned to reach Berlin first.)

Concept of Invasion The correspondent says that General Eisenhower creates the impression that the cross-channel invasion was originally an American conception and that everyone else opposed it. “The facts were,” says the correspondent, “that the British knew that an invasion was impractical in 1942 and 1943, that the Americans were then completely out of touch with the realities of ’the war, and that they eventually admitted the British were right.” The correspondent also defends Britain’s war-time Chief of the Imperial General. Staff (Field-Marshal Lord Alanbrooke), “the thinly-veiled criticisms of whom will cause annoyance to all who know that his personal contribution to victory was surpassed only by Mr Churchill’s.” The correspondent concludes by criticising a book, also published recently in America, by Miss Kay Summersby, who was General Eisenhower’s woman driver during part of the war. The correspondent says that according to Miss Summersby General Eisenhower discussed with her his views of generals serving under him and also confided secret matters to her.

“British Come Out Badly” “If the book is true it will do General Eisenhower no good,” he says. “Her views on leading war figures are enlightening, since they are presumably General Eisenhower’s—the British come out badly, the Americans always win.” British criticism of General Eisenhower’s book has already been extensively quoted in the United States. Three major radio networks broadcast some of the “Sunday Times” comment from coast to coast. The “Manchester Guardian.' which describes “Crusade in Europe" as an honest and sincere book, says that it will inevitably arouse controversy—“as there must be about anything that does not take British statesmen and soldiers at their own valuation.” The most interesting aspect of the book, says the “Manchester Guardian, ’ is the light it throws on a sudden Russian change of front. • “Until June, 1945. there was an intense desire for Allied co-operation no less on the Russian side than on that of the West,” it says. “In a few months this was completely changed so far as the Russians were concerned, and even the pleasant relations that .existed between General Eisenhower and Marshal Zhukov were ended The change in Russian policy probably came from a reassessment of Russia s world position and of the possibilities of her mission to spread Communism.