DESMOND ALBROW

Britons learned that nothing is fair in war
FIFTY YEARS AGO this month, in the middle of one of the greatest wars in our history, the British became officially aware of two important facts.
All was far from fair in both love and war. The American Servicemen, because the girls found their uniforms more sumptuous than British khaki, their dollars more life-enhancing than sterling and their accents more novel and glamorous than English, outgunned their British allies in the struggle for love and sex.
In a similar manner, the Americans, because of their numerical superiority on the battlefield, gained the right to take overall command of one of the most important military campaigns in history the invasion of Europe and its deliverance from the tyranny of Hitler.
By December 1943, Britain had survived three and a half years of battle, blitz and morale-sapping austerity. She had truly earned her spurs as the leading warrior-nation of the coalition.
Admittedly some of the generals that she had thrown up during the war were hardly the stuff of martial genius and splendour. But by that December we had at least two who marched with an aura of victory and occasionally brilliance.
What other allied commanders, we asked, were in the same pantheon as Generals Alexander and Montgomery?
Their victories had brought them the accolades of intimacy. To the British Servicemen and general public they were now simply Alex and Monty. To say that the British were surprised when it was announced in December 1943 who was to be the Supreme Commander for the invasion of Europe would be an understatement. What did we really know about General Dwight D Eisenhower?
He was a likeable Texan with little military experience.
In fact, he had never heard a shot fired in anger or held a field command until leading the allied invasion of French North Africa the previous year.
Monty was to be his field commander in the great enterprise. There was a strange irony in the appointments. Eisenhower had all the English attributes of compromise and reserve: Monty the American attributes of showmanship and flamboyance: the eye for the headlines.
Whatever we British may have thought at the time, Eisenhower's appointment worked in a post that required discretion, compromise and firm resolve to eliminate allied rivalry and jealousy.
It was not so long before we were referring to him as Ike.
The man who had the harshest deal in the affair was the future FieldMarshal Alanbroke, Chief of the General Staff.
Churchill, the Prime Minister, had earlier offered him the post of Supreme Commander for the European invasion, but this was withdrawn when it became obvious for political reasons that an American must have the job. Alanbroke was bitterly disappointed.
ARGUMENTS ABOUT SUNDAY trading bring with them more hot air and unsliced ecclesiastical baloney than most other topics. My view is simple: if a thing is not immoral on weekdays, then it is not immoral on Sunday.