Books: The Bird Watcher As Hero

THE TURN OF THE TIDE (624 pp.)—Arthur Bryant—Doubleday ($6.95).

Who was the architect of victory in World War II? Churchill? Roosevelt? General Marshall? Eisenhower? None of those guesses hit the mark, according to British Historian Sir Arthur Bryant. His choice is a stooped, round-shouldered retired British officer who looks not unlike a solemn parrot, is addicted to bird watching, and lives quietly with his wife in the gardener's cottage of his estate in Hampshire. Most U.S. readers would stare blankly if asked to identify Field Marshal Alan Brooke, now Lord Alanbrooke. But Bryant's The Turn of the Tide, based on Alanbrooke's wartime...