David French - Raising Churchills Army: The British Army and the War against Germany 1919-1945

The British Army and the War against Germany 19191945

DAVID FRENCH

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David French 2000

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First published 2000

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

French, David, 1954
Raising Churchills army : the British army and the war against Germany, 19191945 /
David French.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Great Britain. ArmyHistoryWorld War, 19391945. 2. World War,
19391945Great Britain. I. Title.

D759.F76 2000 940.541241dc21 99057301

ISBN 019-8206410

1 3 5 7 9 1 0 8 6 4 2

Typeset in Imprint by Regent Typesetting, London
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
T. J. International Ltd,
Padstow, Cornwall

I have amassed a large number of intellectual debts in the course of writing this book. I would particularly like to thank Mr Jeremy Barnett, Mrs Christine Bielecki, Dr John Bourne, Professor David Edgerton, Professor John Ferris, Dr Tim Harrison-Place, Dr Paul Harris, Dr Stephen Hart, Dr Brian Holden Reid, Lieutenant-Colonel Philip Pratley, Dr Gary Sheffield, and Mr Keith Simpson for sharing their insights with me, for suggesting possible sources and lines of investigation, and for securing access to material for me. The staff of the Imperial War Museum, the Public Record Office and the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at Kings College London gave me every possible assistance and made working in their institutions a pleasure. Once again Professor Keith Neilson placed me in his debt by taking immense time and trouble to read a draft of my manuscript and to give me the benefit of his copious suggestions. None of the above are responsible for what appears here, but I am grateful to them all. I alone am responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation. I am also most grateful to my editors at OUP, Tony Morris and Ruth Parr, and to their colleagues, for their patience and assistance.

The following individuals and institutions have kindly given me permission to quote from material to which they own the copyright: Mrs G. H. C. Abram; the Reverend Hugh Temple Bone; Mr Victor Bonham-Carter; the Master and Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge; Mr E. A. Codling; the Rt. Hon. Sir R. Dunn MC; Mrs N. R. Edwards; Mr Tom Flanagan; Mr Ronald Gladman; Lieutenant-Colonel E. L. Jones MC; Miss Rosemary Lewin; Mrs Patricia Lothian; the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Kings College London; the Department of Documents and the Department of Sound Records of the Imperial War Museum and the Montgomery Collections Committee of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum and Viscount Montgomery of Alamein CBE; Mr Len Waller. Crown copyright material appears with the kind permission of the Controller of Her Majestys Stationary Office. Despite my best endeavours, I was unable to contact the copyright holders of the papers of Sergeant E. P. Danger. I would like to apologize to them, and to anyone else whose copyright I may have inadvertently infringed.

The process of researching this book was made much easier than it might have been because I was the recipient of a Small Personal Research Grant from the British Academy. I would like to thank the Academy for their support. This book is dedicated to my father and the memory of my mother.

David French
University College London
14 September 1999