This passage by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, penned in his diary this week 75 years ago as planning for the invasion of Normandy between the Americans and British was proceeding, is remarkable and memorable for several reasons.

First, and what has attracted the most attention for those familiar with his wartime diary, is the considerable tension between General Brooke (he would receive the title Lord Alanbrooke after the war) and his boss, Prime Minister Winston Churchill. There are many different takes on why the two men clashed. Churchill was a man of Renaissance interests, a writer, painter, and aristocrat; Alanbrooke was committed to his profession, family, and bird-watching. Churchill was a politician who understood the ebbs and flows of democratic life; Alanbrooke was a soldier and professional strategist. Alanbrooke grounded his military strategies in earthbound logistical realities, such as when he patiently redirected General George Marshall’s wish for an immediate cross-channel invasion of France; Churchill envisioned imaginative operations that would yield dramatic results, which Alanbrooke would often have to negatively vet.  

A second element is the question of the purpose of the diary entry to the writer.  Alanbrooke’s diary is notable for its cutting takes and venting not only against Churchill, but against American leaders such as Generals George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower. Did the diary serve as a mental relief valve, a quick release of daily stress? Was it ever truly intended for publication? When Alanbrooke began the diary on September 28, 1939, he wrote in capital letters, “ON NO ACCOUNT MUST THE CONTENT OF THIS BOOK BE PUBLISHED.” In response to the histories and memoirs published by other Allied leaders, most notably Churchill’s, Alanbrooke relented to have edited versions of his diary appear in the late 1950s.  However, it was not until 2001 that a complete and expurgated version appeared, showcasing in full Alanbrooke’s wit, venom, trials, and frustrations.  

But thirdly, and I believe most importantly, what leaps out to the reader in this one casual diary entry (and lends support to the question of it being meant to relieve the diarist) is the enormous strain and activity that clearly enveloped the men planning for the invasion of Normandy. They worked constantly on the incredibly large and complex operation, every day all day and late into the night, through meeting after meeting, and even dining together in a nonstop whirl of action. What isn’t said in this passage, because all of the Allied leaders involved—Churchill, Roosevelt, Marshall, Eisenhower, Alanbrooke, and all the others—knew the stakes of the situation, is that if they failed at Normandy the war would be lost. In some form, Hitler’s regime would survive if the Allies were driven back into the English Channel.

With such a burden, it’s little wonder that Alanbrooke was dog-tired at the end of the day. But perhaps the biggest underlying lesson to students of history, who know almost 75 years later that the Normandy landings in fact succeeded, is that at the end of the day the Allied leaders were able to work together and surmount their personal animosities to succeed in a task that was greater than any one of them.