1. Kathleen Helen Summersby, known as Kay Summersby, was a member of the British Mechanised Transport Corps during World War II, who served as a chauffeur and later as personal secretary to Dwight D Eisenhower during his period as Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force in command of the Allied forces in north west Europe.
Kay Summersby was the daughter of Donald Florence MacCarthy-Morrogh and Vera Mary MacCarthy-Morrogh.
Kay Summersby's father, descended from the MacCarthy Reagh Princes of Carbery, was originally from County Kerry, and her mother was born in Wales, as the fourth of five sisters, to an English father and Irish mother who was descended from the Morrogh family.
Kay Summersby described her father, a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, as "black Irish" and her mother as English.
Kay Summersby was married in 1936 to British Army officer Gordon Thomas Summersby; when they divorced in 1943, she retained the name of her ex-husband, as is usual.
When Britain entered World War II in 1939, Kay Summersby joined the British Mechanised Transport Corps.
Kay Summersby drove an ambulance throughout the London Blitz in 1940 and 1941, and was reportedly excellent at navigating London streets during blackouts and fog.
Kay Summersby was assigned to drive then Major General Dwight Eisenhower when he arrived in London in May 1942.
Kay Summersby was awarded the British Empire Medal in the 1945 New Year Honours List.
Kay Summersby married the Wall Street stockbroker Reginald H Morgan in 1952, but was divorced in 1958.
Kay Summersby died at her home in Southampton, Long Island, of cancer, on 20 January 1975, at the age of 66.
Past Forgetting was ghostwritten by Barbara Wyden while Kay Summersby was dying of cancer.
However, Truman's account of the Kay Summersby controversy has been rejected by most scholars.
James Gavin wrote that when he asked Chicago Tribune reporter John Thompson during the war whether Eisenhower and Kay Summersby were having an affair, Thompson replied "I have never before seen a chauffeur get out of a car and kiss the General good morning".