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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As a first-time author there are many people to whom I am grateful for their encouragement, patience, advice, and consideration.

The librarians and staff at the National Archives UK, the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Kings’ College London, and the Imperial War Museum London, all in London; the Eisenhower Library, Abilene Kansas; the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; and the Harley Library at the University of Southampton have all been both professional and generous with their support and guidance.

Maj. Miguel Lopez, USAF, an instructor at the Air Force Academy, was kind enough to respond to my request to present a paper at the 2017 Society for Military History Annual Meeting and to include me in the panel he was forming. Jay Lockenour, from Temple University, chaired the session, providing helpful feedback on my presentation, which was an early version of one of the chapters.

I wish to thank the sponsors and organizers of the Normandy 75 conference (Global War Studies journal, Brécourt Academic, and the University of Portsmouth, UK) for accepting my two proposals for presentations at the conference, held in July 2019, both of which were based on material from this book.

Glenn Griffith, my acquisitions editor at the Naval Institute Press, has been amazingly supportive during the process and deserves special recognition for encouraging a first-time author to submit a proposal and having the courage to accept it. Everyone at NIP has been great to work with.

A most special acknowledgment must go to Evan Mawdsley, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Glasgow, one of the general editors of the Cambridge History of the Second World War, friend, mentor, and supervisor for my master’s degree, for taking the time to thoughtfully read the manuscript and being generous with his comments and observations. I also want to thank him for his ongoing encouragement and friendship (as well as for leading a wonderful Sunday outing to the site of the Hollywood Hotel, also known as HMS Warren, in Largs, Scotland).

It approaches the impossible to express or explain the thanks I need to give my wife. It was she who first said, “Why don’t you just write the … book.” She has hosted General Morgan and General Barker at our dinner table for more than a decade. She has asked insightful and important questions, requiring me to clarify and refine many of my thoughts and approaches to telling the story. She has read the manuscript not just searching for sentence fragments or typographical errors but as an editor. Just before we learned that my proposal was accepted, we made the decision to move to France. As a consequence, she took on disproportionate responsibility for an international move with grace and skill that was amazing but not surprising. For all that and for so much more, I am most grateful. This book is dedicated to her.

It is a commonplace but nonetheless true that while many people have been helpful in the writing of the book, any errors that may be found are solely my responsibility.