[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.135-46; D.French, You cannot hate the bastard whois trying to kill you& Combat and ideology in the British Army in the war againstGermany, 1939-45 , Twentieth Century British History, 11 (2000), pp.1-22; D.French, Tommy is no soldier : the morale of the Second British Army inNormandy, June-August 1944 , Journal of Strategic Studies, 19 (1996), pp.154-78.5The same man, who by 1947 was invariably drunk, had the temerity to test to thelimit the hospitality of my impoverished parents: he arrived in Coventry just forthe day , and stayed for a week.6J.Ellis, The Sharp End of War The Fighting Man in World War II (NewtonAbbott, David & Charles, 1980), pp.226-7.7Ibid., p.192.8French, Raising Churchill s Army, pp.49, 61-3.9I.Beckett, The British Army, 1914-18: the illusion of change in J.Turner (ed.),Britain and the First World War (London, Unwin Hyman,1988), pp.114-16.10Ellis, The Sharp End of War, pp.226-7; French, Raising Churchill s Army, p.65,74-5.11M.Petter, Temporary gentlemen in the aftermath of the Great War: rank,status and the ex-officer problem , The historical Journal, 37 (1994), pp.127-52.12Berlin s principal mess for British occupying forces was in the OlympicStadium, and remained so for much of the Cold War.Dad won the 100 yards dash when the Army staged an athletics tournament there in 1946.When I told NOTES 173the stadium supervisor this on a visit in August 1982 he let me make acommemorative jog around the track.13I suspect my father s personal misery was compounded by regular invitations tohave lunch at the House of Lords, all of which he politely declined: Lord Mancroftfinally got the message that wartime companionship could not always survive areturn to peacetime normality.14Sebastian Faulks [column], Independent on Sunday, 11 March 1990.15The cramped central library became for all intents and purposes permanent, andthe council canteen differed little from its glory days as a British Restaurant.Ispent much of what today would be labelled a gap year gaining either mental orphysical sustenance in these two relics of 1940s austerity.16On the differing attitudes of British troops towards SS POWs, see French, Youcannot hate the bastard who is trying to kill you& , pp.17-18.17A second challenge in Algiers to de Gaulle s authority no doubt confirmed Dad slow opinion of the French Army; a prejudice rooted in his wartime inability tocomprehend why the Free French chose to place smart uniforms and snappy drillso far down the priority list.18 I couldn t say anything more then, because I had a funny choke in my throat andI had to clean my glasses because there now, below us, grey and always beautiful,was spread the city I love best in all the world. E.Hemingway, How we came toParis , Collier s, 7 October 1944, in By-Line (London, Penguin, 1970), p.354.19Until casualty replacements and dispersal in July-August 1944 transformed 1/7thBattalion, it largely comprised of Coventry kids. War Diary of 1/7th BattalionThe Royal Warwickshire Regiment , WO171/1388, PRO.20 First D-Day tribute is recalled , Coventry Evening Telegraph, 6 June 1984.J.Charmley, Duff Cooper The Authorized Biography (Weidenfeld and Nicholson,1986), pp.210-11.21M.Hastings, Overlord D-Day and the Battle for Normandy 1944 (London,Michael Joseph, 1984), p.303.The battalion had initially come up against one ofthe Germans most ideologically driven fighting units: 12th SS Panzer (HitlerYouth).This was the division which took a key role in holding open the neck ofthe Falaise pocket for so long.WO171/1388, PRO; J.Keegan, The Second WorldWar (London, Pimlico, 1997), p.342.22Allied land casualties in the battle for Normandy totalled 209,672, of which36,976 died; Anglo-Canadian losses were two-thirds those of the United States.Adaily casualty rate of 2000+ exceeded that of the BEF (including the Royal FlyingCorps) at Passchendaele in the autumn of 1917.British and Canadian battalionsmatched the 1914-18 monthly average of 100 casualties, and in many casessignificantly exceeded it.A disproportionate number of those killed or woundedwere front-line riflemen waging static attritional warfare not that dissimilar fromthe experience of their fathers and grandfathers.Infantry rifle companies sustained70 per cent of all casualties.There was a steep learning curve, and evidencesuggests an improvement in combat performance, as well as a diminution ofresistance, when surveying the campaign in north-west Europe through to May1945: 13.5 men per 1000 per month, compared with 28.1 men per 1000 per month1914-18.Hastings, Overlord, p.313; G.D.Sheffield, The shadow of the Somme: 174 THE CITY OF COVENTRYthe influence of the First World War on British soldiers perceptions and behaviourin the Second World War and T.Copp, If this war isn t over, And pretty soon,There ll be nobody left, In this old platoon& : First Canadian Army, February-March 1945 in P.Addison and A.Calder (eds.), Time To Kill The Soldier sExperience of War in the West 1939-1945 (London, Pimlico, 1997), pp.35-6, and148-9; French, Tommy is no soldier , p.170.23French, Raising Churchill s Army, pp.77, 147.On total German losses, and onthe debate surrounding the Allied, and in particular the British, failure to seal theGap a fortnight earlier, see Hastings, Overlord, pp.313-15.24Address to 59th Division by CO, Major General L.O.Lyne, 21 August 1944, andto senior battalion officers by Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, 22 August1944, WO171/1388, PRO; Copp, If this war isn t over , pp.148-9; French,Raising Churchill s Army, pp.188-9, 244-7, 255-6, 275-7, 277-9.The infantryconstituted less than 25 per cent of 21st Army Group, but accounted for 71 per centof its casualties
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]