Elusive Victories_ The American Presidency at War-Oxford University Press (2012)

(Axel Boer) #1

400 notes to pages 194‒197



  1. Farrell, Defense and Fall of Singapore 1940–1942 , 311. Interestingly, Hitler
    evinced an obsession with prestige, too, which led him to reject voluntary
    withdrawal from cities to which he attached symbolic importance. Hence
    the German disaster at Stalingrad, a pattern that was repeated time and
    again later in the war on the Eastern Front.

  2. Roberts, Masters and Commanders , 283, 285.

  3. Th e British military chiefs held Churchill’s strategic judgment in low
    regard. Roberts, Masters and Commanders , 117.

  4. Roberts, Masters and Commanders , 446.

  5. Roberts, Masters and Commanders , 422–23. Even Brooke suspected
    Churchill wanted campaigns under British command for domestic
    political reasons, since the prime minister would face the voters as
    soon as the European war ended. Roberts, Masters and Commanders ,
    431–32. One has to wonder, though, whether the British people after
    four years of war would have shared Churchill’s eagerness for British
    glory or instead preferred to let someone else take up the burden and
    cost.

  6. Roberts, Masters and Commanders , 420–21, 498–99.

  7. Larrabee, Commander in Chief , 496–97.

  8. Roberts, Masters and Commanders , 556.

  9. Larrabee, Commander in Chief , 579–80, 607–8.

  10. Larrabee, Commander in Chief , 394.

  11. Larrabee, Commander in Chief , 623–24.

  12. For similar views, see Larrabee, Commander in Chief , 1–2; Roberts, Mas-
    ters and Commanders , 77.

  13. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 487–88. Publication of the details of the
    Victory Program, leaked by an isolationist senator, represented a grave
    security breach that gave German war planners key details about the
    American mobilization timetable and broad strategic plan. Th ey might
    have used the information to impede the Anglo-American war eff ort if
    Hitler had been willing to listen to their recommendations. Since these
    would have involved going on the defensive on the Eastern Front and
    making operational withdrawals, however, he rejected their advice out-of-
    hand. Larrabee, Commander in Chief , 124–27.

  14. Richard W. Steele, Free Speech in the Good War (New York: St. Martin’s
    Press, 1999).

  15. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 619.

  16. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 793–94.

  17. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 786–87. On the broad eff ects of the GI Bill,
    see especially Suzanne Mettler, Soldiers to Citizens: Th e G.I. Bill and the
    Making of the Greatest Generation (New York: Oxford University Press,
    2005).

  18. Personal consumption fell 22 percent in Great Britain during the war.
    Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 646–47.

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