"Worst generals’ memoir of World War II?" Topic

"I've just finished reading Gen. Mark Clark's Calculated Risk, and I have to say I think it is one of the dullest war memoirs I've ever read, and certainly the worst I've seen by an American general who served in that war. (I have yet to read some of those by MacArthur and his band of sycophants, though-they are staring at me from the bookshelf but I have been avoiding tackling them.)

Clark comes off as a slippery customer, constantly glossing differences that I know from other books are mighty interesting. Monty? What a jolly fellow. Patton? Troops love him. He really has surprisingly little to say, and so peddles meaningless anecdotes about how dangerous it was to fly around in a Piper Cub. He says almost nothing interesting about his peers or subordinates. Patton absolutely loathed Clark, wishing at one point in his diary that "something would happen" to him, but you wouldn't know that from Clark's jolly references to old "Georgie."

I was particularly struck by Clark's anodyne account of Montgomery ordering Eisenhower to put out a cigarette, on the grounds that he didn't permit smoking in his office. Clark claims that afterwards, he and Ike "got a good laugh out of the incident." I am inclined to credit more Kay Summersby's account that after the meeting, Ike was so angered by the insult that his face was red and the veins in his forehead were throbbing…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Gavin Book was also poorly written.

Has anyone ever read Coral and Brass by Howling Mad Smith? Comments?

Mario Cervi in his book, The Hollow Legions (deals with the Italian war with Greece, 1940-41) puts forward the proposition that good generals write wretched, boring memoirs, about military operations, of interest largely to military history geeks. His example here is General Papagos' book, which he translated from Greek into Italian. On the other hand, terrible generals skip over the dull military stuff, which they couldn't get right anyway, and tell delightful, scurrilous stories about their fellow generals (his example here being Italian general Visconti Prasca.

Grelber

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

Grelber
you've just hit the nail on the head!
Italian generals of ww2 (and also before and up today) were the worst!
appointed as today are appointed every top manager, CEO, military, chief of police ecc…only for political adherence but above all for kiss a….ability..they were some nobody for decision making and tactical ability..with a great penchant for treachery
-think about Graziani and Badoglio ..rabbits if confronted by Austrian , US, UK forces..lions when they gased Lybian rebels or leave alone their own men…
Bergonzoli..the best thing the Aussies did for us was to catch him
all the clique of generals faithful to our dwarf king that betrayed the Army such as:
the hesitant Viceroy of East Africa Duke of Aosta who flirted with his former British college mates instead of fighting
the quasi totality of Navy Top officers except maybe Prince Borghese who sold the info to ennemy intelligence..ecc…eccc….
well except Duke of Aosta who died in an elegant country club as supposed to be prisoner in Kenia they all left disgusting memories which are still today used as references in many works without any wranings…Graziani even titled his last book "Ho salvato la patria"..I saved my country…