Best Defense

Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

‘The Night Watch’ of World War II

The 72 men stood in a large room illuminated by just one bulb, “so it was full of lights and shadows which played about on the crowded faces and figures, and created contrasts as marked as any work of Rembrandt.”

The_Nightwatch_by_Rembrandt
The_Nightwatch_by_Rembrandt

I’ve been reading the London diary of Brig. Gen. Raymond Lee, the U.S. military attaché in London in 1940-41. One night in August 1941 he went to see a British bomber squadron preparing for a raid on Germany. The 72 men stood in a large room illuminated by just one bulb, “so it was full of lights and shadows which played about on the crowded faces and figures, and created contrasts as marked as any work of Rembrandt.”

I’ve been reading the London diary of Brig. Gen. Raymond Lee, the U.S. military attaché in London in 1940-41. One night in August 1941 he went to see a British bomber squadron preparing for a raid on Germany. The 72 men stood in a large room illuminated by just one bulb, “so it was full of lights and shadows which played about on the crowded faces and figures, and created contrasts as marked as any work of Rembrandt.”

Lee was a surprisingly good writer. I can’t figure out what happened to the rest of his career. He seems to kind of go off the radar screen in 1942.

Photo credit: Rembrandt/Wikimedia Commons

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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