11 JULY 1958, Page 22

*THE DEATH OF 2nd LIEUT. BROWNE'

SIR,—While agreeing with your correspondents 2nd Lieuts. Vivian Sutton and Simon Gillett that the efficiency of any army unquestionably depends upon the qualities of its front-line officers, or, as I believe Napoleon so succinctly put it, 'there are no bad privates, only bad leaders,' surely the point of Mr. James Michie's poem is a 'social' rather than a 'military' one.

It is the men who turn 'snobbish,' and in that caustic word of abuse lies the poet's innate, if hidden, sympathy for the unfortunate Browne.—Yours faith- fully,

25 Halsey Street, SW3