Books: Monty Remembers

THE MEMOIRS OF FIELD-MARSHAL MONTGOMERY (508 pp.)—Bernard Law Montgomery—World ($6).

"Monkey" (his schoolboy name) Montgomery, who understandably likes to sign himself Montgomery of Alamein, has the same virtues as a writer that he had as a soldier: he says what he means and he means what he says. He could not have been any different if he had tried. Like many a famous soldier, he lost his early engagements: "My early life was a series of fierce battles, from which my mother invariably emerged the victor." Her approach to the problem posed by Bernard Law Montgomery was simple: "Go and find out...