Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke
Field Marshal Alan Francis Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, KG, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO (July 23, 1883 - June 17, 1963) was a career soldier, Chief of the Imperial General Staff during the Second World War and promoted Field Marshal in 1944. In retirement he served as Lord High Constable of England during the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.
Background and early life
Born in 1883 at Bagnères-de-Bigorre to a prominent Northern Irish family, Alan Brooke was educated in France where he lived to age 16, and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. During World War I he served with the Royal Artillery in France, ending the conflict as a Lieutenant-Colonel. Between the wars he was a lecturer at the Staff College, Camberley and the Imperial Defence College, where he knew most of those who became leading British commanders of the Second World War.World War II
Following the outbreak of World War II, Brooke commanded the II Corps of the British Expeditionary Force and played a leading role in the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk. In July 1940 he was appointed to command United Kingdom Home Forces to take charge of anti-invasion preparations and in December 1941 was appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff; he later also became Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, holding both posts until retirement in 1946. He died in 1963.For most of the Second World War, Brooke was the foremost military advisor to the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, the War Cabinet, and to Britain's allies. As CIGS, Brooke was the functional head of the Army, and as chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, he was responsible for the overall strategic direction of the war effort. The post of CIGS was less rewarding than command in an important theatre of war, but the CIGS chose the generals who commanded those theatres and decided what men and munitions they should have. Offered command of British forces in the Middle East in 1941, Brooke declined it, believing he now knew better than any other general how to deal with Prime Minister Churchill, who too often seemed vulnerable to unwise advice from unqualified people.
In 1942, Brooke joined the western Allies' ultimate command, the U.S.-British Combined Chiefs of Staff, in Washington D.C.
He was later bitterly disappointed to be passed over for command of the Allied invasion of Western Europe, in favour of U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Honours
Brooke was created Baron Alanbrooke, of Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, in 1945, and Viscount Alanbrooke in 1946.
- He won the Distinguished Service Order in World War I,
- He was appointed KCB in 1940,
- He became a Knight of the Garter,
- A member of the Order of Merit in 1946,
- The GCB in 1953,
- And GCVO in 1953.
Coat of Arms
His Coat of Arms as issued to him by the College of Arms is: "A cross engrailed per pale Gules and Sable a crescent for difference."
War diaries
Alanbrooke's war diaries were first published in heavily censored form in 1957.[1]
The publication in 2001 of Alanbrooke's uncensored War Diaries attracted attention for their insight into the day-to-day running of the British war effort and their, at times, forthright criticism of Winston Churchill and other leading figures of the time. These record for example both his bitter disappointment when Churchill agreed in 1943 that General Dwight D. Eisenhower should command the Allied Expeditionary Force, a post Alanbrooke believed he had earned and been promised, and his later judgement that, because of the US contribution in men and munitions, the supreme command had to be exercised by an American general.
Finally
He is buried in his home village of Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, where the last heir to the Alanbrooke viscountcy also still lives. At his death in 1963, Alanbrooke's estate was probated at £50,580 (about £700,000 in 2006).External references
- War Diaries - London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001 - ISBN 0-297-60731-6
- A link to the churchyard where he is buried - which shows his Coat of Arms
