SIR ALAN BROOKE

Evening Star, Issue 23755, 10 December 1940, Page 10

SIR ALAN BROOKE

[By “ F.M.”] ' The first stage of the battle of London is over, and has shown us the qualitative superiority of the R.A.F. over the German air force. Sir Alan Brooke and Sir Frederick Pikes are the men who reorganised the air defence of London. Field-Marshal Sir Alan Brooke is the head of the defence forces of England. His appointment as the highest commander, after General Ironside was transferred, was surprising and unexpected, because Sir Alan Brooke was not known to the public. He belongs to the younger type of officers who showed their ability in the Far East and who are studying in their leisure time types of modern warfare—which are not contained in the books of military academies. Sir Alan has more leisure time than most other ordinary people. Since his boyhood he has suffered from sleeplessness and can only sleep two or three hours during the night. His last successes show that he made good use of this surplus leisure time. He is a small, lively man who acts as quickly as lie speaks and has a sense for improvisation. His main feature is his little beard, a la Mcujou. He has temperamental manners, laughs often and gesticulates when he speaks. He speaks a number of European languages fluently and has a fairly good knowledge of Chinese and Japanese. Ho is widely read and well educated. Brooke was in command of the troops in Hongkong and Shanghai, and when he returned to England, in 1937 he was appointed commander of the first British tank division. Later he was made head of England’s air defence by Hore Belisha. When he took over this new appointment he' found a big job to do. There were only a small number of anti-aircraft guns and they had been neglected. Brooke organised the air defence in seven modern divisions with modern arms, and when the war broke out be could say that his job was nearly completed. But now he was transferred to another place. He became commander of the second corps of the British Expeditionary Force in France. When ho took over his command, he told his officers to take their books from the Military Academy with them, but not to roly on thorn too much. With his troops ho built up a system of defence which consisted ,of drawing up his soldiers in echelons between Lille and the Somme. He thought that bis system of bidden gun battalions and trendies was better than the Maginot Line, and did not believe in the latter’s impregnability. When the Germans attacked France General Weygand followed the advice of Brooke and built up a similar lino of defence, the socalled “ Weygand Line,” but then it was too late. After Dunkirk Brooke was knighted by the King. His new task wjis to build up a new army; the 350,000 soldiers returning from France being the main body of this new British Defence Army. Sir Alan bad his best training in the artillery. But besides that he served in the cavalry, in the infantry, was in command of tank divisions, also of anti-aircraft defence, and is one of the best all-round officers of the British Array. He is the owner of some patents for the improving of arms, and hopes to hold the patent for finding a surprising defence for every surprising attack.