and general truscott, what he did. what i'd like to ask is did you visit the cemeteries at carthage and nettuno where the general said to the chaplain, get rid of the stars of david. they mar the cemetery. and the chaplain told him basically to go to hell, because my boys have title to this land. >> yeah. >> can you tell us about those visits, if any? >> yeah, i spent a lot of time not just in the cemeteries but in all the battlefields that i write about. it's i think quite critical. because for one thing i'm an amateur, i need to see with an amateur's eyes, the terrain, to understand why they went left, not right. so i've been to kasserine pass a number of times and it is in the middle of nowhere, it's out there on the algerian border. and to virtually every battlefield i've written about. some of them i've been to a number of times. most recently earlier this month at normandy. and the other reason i think, other major reason, is not only does the ground speak to you but the dead speak to you. and when you go to that

this is alexander on the right, again, with general truscott, american general.nder's generalship lacks intellectual depth. it even lacks curiosity. he relies more on his legendary savoir and has a sterling reputation at the can thon's mouth and sure looks the part, immaculate, unfazed. in command. one journalist wrote he looked like he had a steam bath, massage, a good breakfast and a letter from home. [ laughter ] he's in his early 50s at this point in the war. he will earn his field marshal's baton in italy, the equivalent of a five-star general. there's no shortage of contemporary disparagement of alexander. his own chief of staff wrote that the limitations of his ability began to appear when the forces under his command became so huge that their manipulation required weeks and months of forethought, not hours or days. another british general simply insisted he's bone from the neck up. [ laughter ] it was said he was a born leader not a made one. an english countrymen almost uneducated who never read a book. it was said he could not write his name before the