Reviewed in Brief

Drive, by Col. Charles R. Codman (Little, Brown, $5.00). This is not a book for former enlisted men. There is far too much in it of good times had by staff officers, and far too little of Gen. Patton (whose aide-de-camp Col. Codman was) and the war he conducted so brilliantly. But if one believes, as this reviewer definitely does, that Patton was our best battle commander since the Civil War, anything about him is worth reading. He has been largely ignored by the biographers and even the historians, possibly because, were Patton given his due, it would have to be subtracted from another reputation. But as Patton’s armies got through in spite of orders and/or enemies, so Patton, the fighting man, comes through Codman’s rambling narrative. And what a man! Patton loved war and he had a fighter’s intuition. The most spectacular example: Patton, says Codman, immediately guessed German intentions in the Battle of the Bulge and began moving troops northward. Three days later, at a staff conference, Eisenhower asked: “George, when can you start up there?” “Now.” “You mean today?” “I mean as soon as you are finished with me here.” There was a pause.

J.P.M.

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Drive, by Col. Charles R. Codman (Little, Brown, $5.00). This is not a book for former enlisted men. There is far too much in it of good times had by staff officers, and far too little of Gen. Patton (whose aide-de-camp Col. Codman was) and the war he conducted so brilliantly. But if one believes, as this reviewer definitely does, that Patton was our best battle commander since the Civil War, anything about him is worth reading. He has been largely ignored by the biographers and even the historians, possibly because, were Patton given his due, it would have to be subtracted from another reputation. But as Patton’s armies got through in spite of orders and/or enemies, so Patton, the fighting man, comes through Codman’s rambling narrative. And what a man! Patton loved war and he had a fighter’s intuition. The most spectacular example: Patton, says Codman, immediately guessed German intentions in the Battle of the Bulge and began moving troops northward. Three days later, at a staff conference, Eisenhower asked: “George, when can you start up there?” “Now.” “You mean today?” “I mean as soon as you are finished with me here.” There was a pause.

J.P.M.