Military mistresses

Discussion in 'The Women of WW2' started by Capt.Sensible, Dec 11, 2007.

  1. KieronDublin

    KieronDublin Member

    No, take my wife. Please.....
     
  2. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    I agree.

    Her later book was a self-serving back stabbing money grab.
     
  3. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    There has been some counter information as regards the relationship

    It has been said that Harry Truman threatened to sack Eisenhower if he divorced his wife to marry Summersby.
     
  4. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Please provide the source of that information.
     
  5. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Merle Miller made that claim in a 1973 book entitled Plain Speaking but I've heard the same threat to Ike being made by Gen. Marshall. There is no unequivocal evidence that the affair happened at all so it remains a matter of opinion.
     
  6. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    I would say there is no evidence of any kind. Miller doesn't have any credibility. He was a scandle monger, not a historian

    Summersby never hinted that there was an affair while Eisenhower was alive and could refute it.

    Pure gossip to me until I see some written evidence in Truman, Marshall or Eisenhower's hand.
     
  7. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    I don't think anyone can refute that position Dave but Ike did himself no favours in allowing the perception to exist.
     
  8. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

    Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Peirse having an affair with and later marrying the wife of Auchinleck - his friend!

    Pretty caddish. And Auchinleck's stoicism about the betrayal is another reason to admire the man.
     
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  9. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    RE Summersby and Ike, I believe that some of Ike's staff were suspicious about the relationship. I'm not sure where I got that, possibly from Atkinson's Army at Dawn (he does quote some sources so I don't think he is making it up). But it is clear from Ike's letters that he remained attached to Mamie and had no intention of giving her up, whatever was or was not happening with Ms. Summersby. So if Summersby was having it off with him then any long-term hopes she had were groundless.

    I recall some scandalous stories about the Mountbattens in Andrew Roberts' Great Churchillians. He reports that both were said to be bisexual and it was widely believed that Edwina had an affair with Nehru. I think that was supposed to have happened while her husband was Viceroy.
     
  10. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    As to Montgomery, I can't help but think that he would have been a much happier man and easier to deal with all around if his wife hadn't died. By all accounts, she was one of the very few people (and the only woman) he ever trusted completely.
     
  11. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

    From all I've read, he might have been a happier man and a worse soldier. That said, I don't entirely accept the portrait so often presented of a man unable to remove the mask; nor do I think that his devoted relationships with those on his staff are of little value when set against a wife and traditional domestic home-life You needn't be throwing around homosexual innuendo when you suggest he felt comfortable around a cadre of close male friends - anybody who has experienced the camaraderie of single sex schooling, Scouts and (for all I know) prison or the monastic orders would probably be able to speak to the value of the bonds forged there. Add the catalyst of the proximity of death and destruction and the need for mutual dependence and you have the potential for psychologically precious relationships beyond the physical.

    Old soldiers often have a desire to spend time with one another; being 'in it' together seems to count for a lot and some very unlikely friendships have grown out of wars.
     
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  12. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    I don't think that would have been the case. Montgomery's ability was always great and I doubt that any personal attachments would have diminished it; but from what I have read the harshness and egotism in his personality were always his worst enemies. Those negatives were of course the reverse of some of his best traits, his devotion to doing the job and his self-confidence. It seems that his wife humanized him a bit, made him less bumptious and easier to get on with. (Women could shut Montgomery up and discipline him more easily than men could, as both his mother and Clementine Churchill proved.) I have not heard that Montgomery's marriage diminished his efficiency or harmed his career. Of course one cannot know for certain what would have happened if Montgomery's wife had lived, and we don't want this to turn into a "what if." I suppose I was thinking more of Montgomery in the human sense than anything else.

    I don't accept Hamilton's thesis either. What he is describing, as you say, was fairly normal for men of Montgomery's background and education. And where else could a rather shy and withdrawn man who was married to his job find companionship than among his fellow professionals?
     
  13. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

    Perhaps you're right, I was alluding to the impression I'd got from Monty in Love & War and the (original) Hamiliton biography that his career somehow 'took off' after his wife's death, but I could be misremembering.

    You're quite correct that he was always seen as very able, but would it be fair to say, I wonder, that things picked up in the promotion and patronage arena post-1937 (the year Elizabeth died)? Certainly his promotion to Major General came along the following year after he put on a few well-received exercises, but having already worked at Camberley in the mid-20s and become an instructor at Quetta a decade later, perhaps he was always destined for the top flight. His relationship with Alanbrooke was certainly critical to his rising star, but I don't recall whether their connection was purely a product of his serving under him in France or whether they were already well-acquainted prior to the outbreak of war.
     
  14. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    This may be a matter more of wives than mistresses, but Percy Hobart's career was severely damaged when he seduced the wife of one of his students at Quetta. The woman (Dorothea Field Chater) divorced her husband and married Hobart immediately. The case led to widespread distrust of Hobart by his fellow officers. The matter was professional as well as personal, since Hobart had responsibility for the performance evaluation of the husband in the case.
     
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  15. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    It is on record that on the death of his wife who was the widow of a fellow officer who fell in the Great that he devoted his time wholly to his military career.

    He had a personality trait which saw him not attending his mother's funeral after they had differences.It would appear that he led a lonely life in retirement and found some solace in a penned friendship with a teenager.

    Wasn't Hobart Monty's brother in law?.Hobart was recalled by Monty and given a command which led to his "funnies"
     
  16. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Yes, Hobart's sister married Montgomery. She was a remarkable woman, as both of them were remarkable men.

    Actually, from what I have read Churchill and Liddell-Hart were the men most responsible for Hobart's rehabilitation and restoration to high command. Hobart was actually retired and serving as a corporal in the Home Guard (!) when Liddell-Hart wrote an article saying that Hobart's brains were being wasted. Churchill set the wheels in motion shortly thereafter and Hobart was soon restored to rank and given important work.
     
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  17. DRobinBarker

    DRobinBarker New Member

    FYI - Historical accounts indicate that General Patton admired, met and has a sexual encounter with movie star Marlene Dietrich in Europe.
     
  18. Swiper

    Swiper Resident Sospan

    Which accounts suggest the 'shipping' of Dietrich and Patton?

    Some commanders such as Dorman-Smith's somewhat rampant promiscuity are well documented. The above sounds rather like a... fanciful tale.
     
  19. Tom Canning

    Tom Canning WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    IF - as it has been said - Ike and Summersby DID NOT have a sexual relationship…..can someone explain why both Ike and Bradley missed the opening of the German advance in December '44

    when they were shacked up with Summersby and another female in the Palace in Paris for four days……eventually they found out and Ike made Monty GOC Northern Command…...

    cheers
     
  20. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Old Hickory Recon

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