Battle of the Generals The Untold Story of the Falaise Pocket, the Campaign That Should Have Won World War II by Martin Blumenson

Battle of the Generals The Untold Story of the Falaise Pocket, the Campaign That Should Have Won World War II by Martin Blumenson is a rather strange book. The author sets out to analyze the relationships and arguments between Canadian British and American generals throughout the Normandy campaign. Actually what this book is a catalog of "croaking". If one of the major players ever had a bad word to say about anyone else it gets mentioned here. According to Blumenson everybody was incompetent or stupid or both except for General Patton.

There's a contradiction in the argument the criticism is leveled that the high command specifically Eisenhower and Montgomery were not interested in destroying the German forces in the pocket instead they were interested in seeking territory but Patton. Has been called correctly a "cavalry General". Patton who throughout the Normandy campaign was more interested in charging headlong to grab more territory then destroying the enemy.

The book does contain a decent description of the overlord decisionmaking process as well as the reasoning behind some of the decisions in the Normandy battle. A decent summary in that respect.




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