Re: Col. Stacey's Official History of the Cdn Army in WW2

["Lawson" <kplawson@csolve.net>]

Bob Kennedy
Ref. Your Comments on Col Stacy.
Right on an extremely good explanation of a man of integrity and personal
ability. How many other countries wish they had some one of Col Stacy's
stature employed on the so important task he so competently preformed.
Before the days of political correctness, and the current crop of arm chair
warriors attempts to rewrite and degrade.  In passing have your been
following the claymore story?
Keith Lawson
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert H Kennedy <rhk@interlog.com>
To: <army@cipherlogic.on.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2021 10:57 PM
Subject: Re: Col. Stacey's Official History of the Cdn Army in WW2
> At 09:36 PM 16/02/00 -0800, you wrote:
> >Hi,
> >
> >I'm wondering as to how much the volumes can be counted on as an
> >'objective' source. Being published by the authority of the ministry of
> >national defence, I would think that somewhere, somebody would have
> >wanted to make sure it was portraying the army in the 'proper' image.
> >Any opinions?
> >
> >Martin
> >
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> >message body.
> >
> >
>
> Col Stacey's history is excellent; such constraint as exists owes as much
> to his own upbringing - in a time and a family where manners mattered - as
> to the army command. During the war, when his job was to gather up the
> documents and the interviews for the subsequent history, he was very much
> aware of the tension between his reponsibility to collect the truth and
the
> absolute resistence of those who had it. Many of them, of course, had
their
> own reputations to protect, the truth be damned, and that's a state secret
> anyway.
>
> In his autobiography, Stacey writes about the struggle he had in the
> aftermath of Dieppe; you'll find it in "A Date with History" from Deneau,
> 1982 or 1983. You can judge his integrity from this.
>
> My favourite rule of his was that he never gave much credence to stories
> soldiers told him about a battle they'd been in if that battle had been
> more than five or six days before. The gaps were beginning to be filled in
> by then, he believed, after much experience.
>
> Finally, compare what Stacey says about Verrieres Ridge to what the
McKenna
> brothers claimed - especially, what they claimed we'd never been told.
> Stacey explains more of what happened than those lightweights could ever
> have imagined; he understood what he called "the military probabilities."
> If he didn't ever actually say that any particular general was a fool, he
> was skillful and honest enough to tell you enough to let you draw your own
> conclusions. The man had some discretion.
>
> Although Stacey's work is thorough, a great deal has been added to the
> record since his time. Whenever I want to dig into something, I check what
> Stacey said, and then I read the rest. So, if anybody's got a CP Stacey
fan
> club out there, I'll join!
>
> Bob Kennedy
> Curator
> Regimental Museum of The Queen's York Rangers
> Toronto
>
>
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