Armageddon - Max Hastings [403]
In the United States, beyond interviewing veterans, for the first time I had the pleasure of working at the United States Army’s Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Its staff were immensely helpful. Its collection is, of course, a treasure trove of books, documents and recorded interviews. Most of its Oral History collection is available in transcript, and its holding of diaries and personal papers of key figures in the wartime U.S. Army is without equal. I owe a debt also to Tim Nenninger at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Its magnificent new building is a revelation after the miseries of researching a generation ago at the NA’s old premises in Suitland, Maryland. The late Dr. Stephen Ambrose became, sadly, a controversial figure in the last year or two of his life. I can only express gratitude that I was able to borrow material from his large collection of unpublished manuscripts written by veterans of the Second World War, together with copies of some privately published memoirs. Such works have become an important source for historians of the period. I am also grateful to Dr. Williamson “Wick” Murray, an historian whom I much admire, for drafting a reading list for me at the outset of this project, of important works on American battlefield performance. I pursued almost all of Wick’s suggestions.
Friends and specialists in three countries were kind enough to read and comment upon my draft manuscript: in Britain, the doyen of military historians Professor Sir Michael Howard, CH, MC, and Don Berry, my former colleague at the Daily Telegraph, whose editorial judgement I have always respected so much; in Germany, Gotz Bergander and Major John Zimmermann; in the United States, Wick Murray and a fellow military historian whom I have admired for thirty years, Professor Russell Weigley. The latter’s books, especially his huge work Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, remain for me among the most important studies of the American campaign in north-west Europe. None of those above bears the smallest responsibility for what I have written, and least of all for my mistakes. They were invited to offer general comments, before this manuscript was sent to its publishers.
I must thank my secretary, Rachel Turner, who worked for me in the editor’s office of the Daily Telegraph for so long, and is once more doing many things for me without which this book could not have been written. It is a cliché for authors to conclude by paying tribute to their wives, yet only writers’ families know how painful it is to live in a house in which a book is taking shape. The proverbial wife’s plea “For richer, for poorer, but please God not for lunch” is set at naught when an author is scribbling day and night about issues which perforce become obsessions. When I tell Penny that my debt to her is beyond payment, she is inclined to murmur: “I’m just glad you know it.”
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sir Max Hastings was a foreign correspondent for many years, reporting from more than sixty countries for BBC TV and the Evening Standard. He has reported on conflicts in the Middle East, Indochina, Angola, India, Zimbabwe, and finally, in the 1982 Falklands War. He has presented historical documentaries for television, including a series on the Korean War. In 2003 he presented a documentary on Churchill and his generals. Hastings is the recipient of numerous awards from the United Kingdom for his books and journalism, including Journalist of the Year in 1982, and Editor of the Year in 1988. He has written eighteen books