This is John Bachelor.

Conversation with the author Michelle Peridae.

His book The Light of Battle is The Story of Eisenhower from 43 to 44 up to and including

the invasion June 6, 1944.

In this part, Michelle describes Eisenhower arriving back in Britain after a 10-day holiday

at Christmas time 43 and he and his aider met by Kaye

Somersby his driver and Kaye maneuvers London spectacularly and in it Michelle very carefully

characterizes the relationship between Eisenhower and K Somersby. Michelle

Perdi the light of, more of this later.

Yeah, it's a wonderful moment.

So Eisenhower, as you mentioned, returns after a sojourn briefly in the United States where he's you know just

bombarded and then has to take what it turns out to be a well over a 24-hour

journey back to the United Kingdom. But because of the notorious English fog or smog really being even worse than it normally is he ends up having to land in Scotland and take a train all through the night, which doesn't get him into London

until about 12 o'clock in the morning.

And they're waiting for him, Ms. K. Summersby, as you mentioned, his driver since he arrived in 1942 and probably one of the

closest people to him in the war I would actually say you know there's a lot of

speculation and there's a lot of purely interest, puree and interest, not the least from people like FDR in the sort of romantic character of the relationship, and there's been all sorts of writing and speculation primarily about that ever since. But I found their relationship profound

primarily you know irrespective of whether or not it had a romantic dimension but she

is just the closest person to him because she's really the only person he can really trust in what is otherwise a

jar full of scorpions, even the people who are his closest allies, including people like

Harry Butcher, right?

As soon as it looks like he's about to be shipped back

...