On the morning of 28 September 1939, General Sir Alan Brooke set off for France to take part in the disastrous opening phases of the war, a war which in the end Brooke did more to win than anyone on the British side other than Winston Churchill. In the first entry in his diaries - addressed to his wife Benita and published to the consternation of Churchill after the Second World War - he recounted the seeming absurdity of the looming conflict.