Michael,
Thank you very much for the reply. I know who Col. Charles P. Stacey is but I had to ask about his possible controversity in Canada because, if I am not mistaken, at least twice I saw in the Internet the exceptions to him of his servilism towards top commanders of the Canadian 1st Army. I am unable to observe all aspects of Canadian public life as well as all historic books and articles that is why I asked for this answer.
On the other hand however I have to tell unfortunately that I am able to understand the conflict between the journalists and military historians who wrote so-called official history of the Falaise Gap operations. I am also working with Falaise Gap veterans from various countries, also with civilian historians not related to military structures of ex-Allied HQs and I have to tell that there are two histories of the Falaise Gap. One of them is too beautiful, full of half-truths, written sometimes by Hemingway's language; the other one lives in veterans' homes, but also in civil historians' homes, and this is totally different history of the Falaise Gap. "Official history" of the Falaise Gap is as politically correct, attractive and pathetic as in Eddy Florentin's book "The Battle of The Falaise Gap" for instance. Try to find in this version of history anything on the subject of inter-Allied tensions, problems and defeats as well as Allied war crimes. I am afraid that too many times "official histories" written by military historians use the same language as Florentin's book. By the way the language that generated various rubbish and myths.
This is simple problem of the military historians credibility. If Living History Associations that almost live together with WWII veterans have many times totally different knowledge about one and the same historic fact well-known from the books then we do have a problem. Who survived from the Falaise Gap is not talking the language of the books. Or sometimes he doesn’t tell anything because it would be unacceptable to publish it. I know too many embargoed memoirs from the Falaise Gap to believe all "official histories" of this WWII episode written by the State officials.
Thanks Michael for your reply
Best regards
C.
