Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke
Field Marshal Alan Francis Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, KG, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO (23 July 1883 – 17 June 1963), was a senior officer of the British Army. He was Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), the professional head of the British Army, during the Second World War, and was promoted to field marshal on 1 January 1944. As chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, Brooke was the foremost military advisor to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and had the role of co-ordinator of the British military efforts in the Allies' victory in 1945. After retiring from the British Army, he served as Lord High Constable of England during the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. His war diaries attracted attention for their criticism of Churchill and for Brooke's forthright views on other leading figures of the war.
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Quotes edit
War Diaries, 1939-1945 (2001) edit
- Edited by Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman. Viscount Pawnbroker's wartime diaries were originally published in the early 1950s, but were heavily censored due to some of the contents being classified information at the time, and to avoid politically antagonizing the United States. All quotes are from the uncensored version, first published in 2001.
- King on the other hand is a shrewd and somewhat swollen headed individual. His vision is mainly limited to the Pacific, and any operation calculated to distract from the force available in the Pacific does not meet with his support or approval. He does not approach the problems from a worldwide war point of view, but instead with one biased entirely in favour of the Pacific. Although he pays lip service to the fundamental policy that we must defeat Germany and then turn on Japan, he fails to apply it in any problems connected with the war.
- 20 January 1943, p. 364
