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Title: The Bitter Woods: The Dramatic Story, Told at All Echelons- From Supreme Command to Squad Leader- Of the Crisis That Shook the Western Coalition: H by John S. D. Eisenhower, Stephen E. Ambrose ISBN: 0-306-80652-5 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: September, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.64 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A well written account of an interesting battle.
Comment: I've read this book more times than I can count. To me, that's the highest praise I can give. Eisenhower (the author) writes as an historian ought to, with no axes to grind in describing Montgomery's actions, etc. His firsthand knowledge of Army ways and wherefores holds him in good stead: the reader is being shepherded through the material by one in the know who always provides a down-to-earth rational perspective. The story he tells stands on its own as, alternately, a mystery, an excellent character study of the participants (particularly the commanders), and an exciting tale of an event that represented, in my mind, the climatic event of World War II in the European Theater.
Rating: 4
Summary: A well-written general history.
Comment: This is a very well-written history of one the most famous battles of World War II which was written for a general audience. Those looking for a David Glantz-like, academic study of the campaign should pass this one by. Eisenhower is a very skilled writer, and his description of the first weeks of the German offensive is very well done.
The book does have some problems. Being the son of the former commander of the ETO and President, Eisenhower had access to interview for his research many of the top commanders who fought in the battle. However, that strength could also be a weakness because most of those commanders interviewed were friends and comrades of his father. Thus, Eisenhower is rarely if ever critical of any of the commanders despite the fact that serious errors were made on the eve of the campaign on the part of the American high command. Also the book is full of GI slang such as "burp guns," which may have been recognizable to readers in the early 60's, but not so in the 21st century.
Rating: 5
Summary: Fascinating account of Hitler's last gamble in the West....
Comment: The Bitter Woods, historian John S. D. Eisenhower's insightful account of the Ardennes Counteroffensive in the winter of 1944, is one of the best books yet written about the Battle of the Bulge. Along with John Toland's 1959 classic Battle: The Story of the Bulge and the late Charles B. MacDonald's A Time for Trumpets, this volume is a must-read for World War II buffs.
The Ardennes Counteroffensive was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler himself. Even as Soviet forces raced toward Berlin from the east and the Western Allies advanced steadily toward the Rhine in the west, the Fuhrer squirreled away hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces plus thousands of soldiers -- some of them either old men over the age of 50 or young boys no older than 16 -- and planned a daring stroke reminiscent of the Third Reich's triumphs in 1939 and 1940. Three entire armies would strike the Allies in the "quiet" Ardennes forest region of Belgium and Luxembourg and drive to the crucial port of Antwerp. Hitler hoped to drive a wedge between the Anglo-Canadian armies in the north and the American armies in the south and cause inter-Allied political strife. At the very least, the seizure of Antwerp would slow the Allied advance just enough so Nazi Germany could develop "wonder weapons" and rain V-1 and V-2 missiles on London and other Allied cities. At the very best, the Grand Alliance would fall apart and Hitler might be able to negotiate a separate peace with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
But even though Hitler's offensive caught the Allies by surprise on Dec. 16, 1944 and created much havoc and confusion, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces, remained relatively calm. The Germans did penetrate the thinly held front and created a salient or "bulge" in the Allied lines, but Eisenhower and his field commanders (Bradley, Hodges, Patton and the various corps and divisional commanders) soon recovered and took decisive measures to contain the German assault.
But generals and colonels, no matter how skilled or determined, can't win battles alone. The Bitter Woods contains many accounts of brave GIs and junior officers who fought tooth and nail to slow and stop Hitler's last desperate gamble in the West. Readers who are just beginning to read about World War II will be in awe of the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division who helped hold the surrounded city of Bastogne, whose capture by the Germans was deemed by Hitler as a principal objective if his plan were to succeed. (Bastogne is where Brig. Gen Tony McAuliffe replied to the Germans' demand for surrender with the pithy one-word refusal, "Nuts!") The author, who graduated from West Point in June 1944 and is the Supreme Commander's son, writes about the stand of St. Vith's defenders, the combat engineers who blew bridges in front of the advancing panzer units, the ill-advised massacre of American POWs at Baugnez (the misnamed Malmedy Massacre) by SS troops and the harrowing baptism by fire of the green 106th Infantry Division, which lost two of its regiments in the largest American surrender since Bataan in 1942.
Eisenhower also writes extensively about the campaign in Northwest Europe both before and after the Battle of the Bulge, allowing both the new reader and long-time buff to place this, the largest single battle in U.S. Army history (there were, by January of 1945, over 600,000 soldiers involved), in the context of the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny.
Because the book was originally written in 1969, five years before the revelation of the Ultra secret, the account of the Allies' intelligence failure is not as well-explained as in the 1985 book by Charles MacDonald, but aside from that, The Bitter Woods still stands as one of the finest "case studies" of a major battle of World War II.
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Title: Battle: The Story of the Bulge by John Toland, Carlo D'Este ISBN: 0803294379 Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr Pub. Date: April, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.84 |
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Title: A Time for Trumpets : The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge by Charles B. Macdonald ISBN: 0688151574 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 02 April, 1997 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Seven Roads to Hell : A Screaming Eagle at Bastogne by Donald R. Burgett ISBN: 0440236274 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 09 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: A Blood-Dimmed Tide : The Battle of the Bulge by the Men Who Fought It (Dell World War II Library) by Gerald Astor ISBN: 0440215749 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 03 December, 1993 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Mighty Endeavor: The American War in Europe by Charles B. MacDonald ISBN: 0306804867 Publisher: Perseus Book Group Pub. Date: December, 1992 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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