F@#$ The Liberation Trilogy

A review of the so far uncompleted War in Europe Trilogy by Rick Atkinson.

First, this book is a chronological narrative of the various WW2 European land campaigns.  WTF is a narrative you may ask?  A narrative writer researches the various battles in depth, going so far as to routinely quote from letters of the participants.  The generals of course (bird’s eye view), but quite possibly the average soldier too (worm’s eye view).

Narratives are long; they read slow and show a tendency to get sucked into details.  Perhaps the most famous of these is Shelby Foote’s  The Civil War: A Narrative.  I read this too, but its 3000-4000 pages long and was my reading material for half a year. 

I mention that because before you rush to Barnes & Noble (damn Nobles and their screwing my family out of half the store…) to buy this, know what you are getting.  It might not be your cup of tea, and that’s fine.  But on the off chance you are still interested…

I really enjoyed both An Army at Dawn and The Day of Battle.

An Army at Dawn

Tells the story of the United States’ entry into WW2 and the subsequent operations in North Africa.  I found it a good read for a number of reasons.

1)      Big picture.  How did Operation Torch (the invasion of French North Africa) come about?  I found it a fascinating examination of the various American plans that were rejected by the British.  Us Yanks wanted to go cross channel as early as 1942, but the Limeys vetoed that.  The deferment to junior alliance partner status at this stage of the war was also interesting.

2)        The Players.  I have seen Patton.  So most of the lead generals are at least familiar.  A good military narrative really examines the players and how their strengths and weaknesses shape the campaign

3)      The nuggets.  Besides the big battle Army scale analysis, Atkinson also tells the story of individual companies and platoons.  Trying not to spoil anything, but what happened to units in the 34^th infantry was downright criminal.

Day of Battle

This is the story of the Sicily and Italian campaigns, culminating in the fall of Rome.  There is some chapters after Rome, but it is all falling action mirroring what an actual backwater Italy became for the Allies

This is more of the same as Army at Dawn but more so, because the Italian campaign simply doesn’t get as much historical mention except to say that it was long, hard and progress was slow.

So overall, I enjoyed the first two installments of this series and am looking forward to the D-Day campaign, and hope there’s plenty of pages on Operation Dragoon, the lesser known invasion of southern France that was just as instrumental for Germany’s defeat.