“It’s unrecognizable now, and I don’t mean just the wrecked buildings and the craters and rubble everywhere and the pall of smoke that’s always overhead. The bombers are abrading the soul of the city, and it may never recover. Everyone here has lost family members and friends, but there’s more to it than that. People here drew strength from the immutability of their city and their lives. Nothing ever changed. Now everything is different.”
He glanced at his wristwatch. “The children have been taken to the country. There are block-long lines for food and virtually everything else. Two years ago, most Londoners wouldn’t have anything to do with the black market. Now it’s a second economy, and folks here are wondering at their inability to do the patriotic thing and avoid the black markets.”
The general returned the wave of a pedestrian who had recognized him. “And the smaller things. Having to feed potatoes to their dogs. The banning of the ringing of church bells except to announce the invasion. The warning sirens and the all-clears night after night, sometimes as many as ten times a night. These and hundreds of other nuisances are grinding away at them, making them less British, less resolute and enduring.”
He paused a moment, then added, “And now this. Jesus, this is going to be tough for the Brits to take.”
We had reached the Queen Victoria Memorial opposite Buckingham Palace, rather, what remained of the palace, which was very little. A night bombing three days before had torn apart the structure. The edifice had been reduced to hillocks of Portland stone and bricks. Those parts of the palace familiar to the public, the Ball Room and the Bow Room, had vanished, though ragged portions of the gold-capitaled pilasters and the corbeled doorways could be seen protruding from the stone piles. An enormous crystal candelabra had been dug from the ruins, and lay in an inglorious, fractured heap behind the iron fence.
Flying the royal standard over the palace when the monarch was in residence had been discontinued early in the war. During the bombing, the king had been in Leeds reviewing soldiers of the British I Corps and the royal family had been at Balmoral. Even so, fifteen members of the household staff had perished in the blasts and ensuing fire.
All that remained upright of Buckingham Palace were a few jagged brick spires, charred black and tottering so precariously it was judged wise to topple them. Perhaps a thousand people had gathered near the gates to watch a wrecking ball swing from a crane in the forecourt. The ball hit a segment of wall, and bricks and mortar fell to the ground, sending up a roll of dust.
As we slowed for the crowd, the general said, “This’ll be hugely demoralizing.”
I understood him to mean the bombing of the palace, until he said a moment later, “To finish the job for the Luftwaffe by bringing down the last of the walls with a wrecking ball is a terrible decision. The ruins should sit there for Londoners to gaze on every time they pass by.”
He fished a cigarette from his tunic pocket and said, “After all the pounding these people have taken, they need an Alamo. This should have been it. I’d say so to Winnie and Montgomery, that SOB, but it’s too late.”
I hasten to mention that General Clay had enormous respect for Bernard Montgomery, particularly for his genius at managing the set battle, but the British general “affects me like a cold sore,” Clay often said. I almost never heard Clay mention Montgomery without adding “that SOB,” much like the letters following the names of British valor award winners, such as VC for Victoria Cross.
“Honk the horn, Sergeant,” Clay ordered. The crowd was blocking the Bentley’s progress. “We’re late. I received a telex from Roosevelt yesterday asking me to be more prompt for the meetings with Churchill, if you can imagine. Winnie must have complained to the president. Christ, many is the morning I’ve waited two hours for the PM to get out of bed.”
McWhorter tapped the horn, and we waded through the bystanders. Several times the general returned greetings with waves. When we resumed speed, he said again, “An Alamo. That’s what is needed.”
I wanted to say that the British already had enough Alamos, that the entire country would soon be an Alamo, but I remained silent.
General Clay began one of his trademark orations, this one about promptness in the military, which lasted all the way to the War Rooms, and which will be happily omitted here. Instead, I’ll introduce myself.
The British call an aide-de-camp a dog’s body, someone always under foot and easy to kick. That’s all I knew about military aides when I was first assigned to General Clay. He never did outline my duties, and, with the exception of the diary he directed I keep, I invented my own tasks. My job evolved, and by S-Day I was acting as a staff troubleshooter, handling relations with the press, scheduling the general’s appointments, and channeling his orders.
To my regret, not once did any newspaper or radio ever suggest that I was a power behind the throne, a Richelieu or a Rasputin. I suppose my dispensable nature was too apparent. In fact, in many command and staff photos that appeared in stateside newspapers during the war, I was the only person not named. The caption under the famous Life photograph taken by Margaret Bourke-White reads, “With the weight of the free world on their shoulders, Prime Minister Churchill and General Clay spread a map on a tree stump at the Prime Minister’s retreat at Chequers. Also present is an unidentified aide.” My wife’s next letter to me began, “My dear Unidentified.”
I have three degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles. My Ph.D. thesis is entitled “Lieutenant General John Burgoyne’s Strategy to Restore King George III’s Rule in His Rebellious American Colonies; Defects in the Design.” Quite a read, I might add, if you are interested in that sort of thing. I was hired by the War Department as a lecturer in military history and strategy soon after leaving the university, and I taught as a civilian at West Point and at combat schools around the country for a number of years. For a while, Major Wilson Clay was a fellow staff member at the artillery officer’s school in Washington.
My knowledge of military history was the nexus of my relationship with General Clay, I believe. The anecdotes of war that he would extract from his remarkable memory and parade before me—at times it seemed he was flogging me with them—acted as a religion for him, offering him guidance and support. Perhaps he viewed me as a disciple.
To say we were friends during those days would be an exaggeration. Our wives became quite close, though. Clay was the hardest worker I ever met. He thought nothing of his seventy-hour work week. He spent the little time he allowed himself for socializing with staff-level officers and congressmen or administration officials. Among Wilson Clay’s many gifts was the ability to make friends with influential people. I am a student of command and of Clay, but I don’t pretend to understand this talent.
By 1939 one didn’t need a doctorate to see the war coming, so I joined the army, tired by then of teaching, thinking that I’d prefer to fight than teach fighting. The army promptly sent me back to West Point, this time in uniform. I made repeated requests for transfers to line duty, all of which were denied. Finally, when I heard Wilson Clay was being sent to Europe as a divisional commander, I wrote him asking for work. I tried to avoid pleading in my letter, but failed, so much did I want to be in the war. I also shamelessly asked my wife, Barbara, to ask Clay’s wife for help. This and, as the general delighted in pointing out, only this succeeded.
A few more personal notes. I was thirty-five years old at the time of S-Day. Barbara and I have one child, a boy, born since the war ended, who is now two years old and who appears on his way to becoming a gifted surgeon. I have three bald brothers, but I boast every hair I ever had, and it is seal brown. I wouldn’t call myself handsome (and if I won’t, no one else will), but my features are presentable. My nose is a bit too wide, and I can’t quite hide my Adam’s apple. My eyes are blue or green, depending on the light, and my wife loves them. I have a strong laugh and what I think is an attentive manner. People like being around me.