It is fairly widely known that I was specially commissioned in order that I might become an additional member of the Joint Planning Staff, and that I worked in the famous fortress basement of the War Cabinet Offices for three years.
It is therefore important that I should make it absolutely clear that no statement on military matters contained in this book is in any way inspired. During the eleven years since I put off my uniform as a Wing Commander I have had no contact, other than social, with any member of the Joint Planning Staff; and the views of my fiction characters upon future strategy and the reorganisation of the Fighting Services owe nothing to any member of it past or present.