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Title: An Army at Dawn : The War in Africa, 1942-1943, Volume One of the Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson ISBN: 0-8050-7448-1 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.51 (78 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Great Book!
Comment: An Army At Dawn is an extremely detailed and well researched book on the North African Campaign that lasted from November 1942 through May of 1943. Though I already had a working knowledge of this important campaign, this is a book you can't do without if you want a comprehensive understanding on the subject.
Atkinson details the reasoning and planning for this campaign and how the British and Americans differed on where they should attack first. Americans like Eisenhower wanted to establish a front on the European mainland while the British led by Churchill wanted a peripheral attack. Both sides agreed to North Africa and thus the planning for Operation Torch began.
What makes this book somewhat unique is that it covers a lot of the "little" battles that took place as well as discussing the ordinary combat soldier and what life was like for him. Atkinson does a good job at giving the reader a feel for how soldiers from small towns in places like Iowa suffered such a high proportion of casualities and the affect this had on these small towns.
Of course North Africa served as a testing ground for many of the major American military figures like Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley who would all go on to gain fame in Europe. Other military figures like Terry Allen, T.R. Roosevelt Jr., John Waters, Paul Robinett, and others were well covered. This book, I think, does a good job of showing some of the weaknesses displayed by many of these figures especially Eisenhower and how they grew in their abilities as a result of the North African campaign. There were many officers whose abilities were shown not to be so great, especially after the Allied defeat at Kasserine.
Another key theme to this book focuses on the working relationship between the Americans and the British. Of course this war would solidify this relationship which has endured to this day, but it did not start out with great promise. Atkinson describes how many of these American officers possessed what he called Anglophobia and that the British did not believe the ordinary American soldier had the ability or the will to fight. Boy were they wrong!
America displayed its might in manpower and industrial capacity during World War II and it began to show during this critical campaign that resulted in the complete liberation of North Africa from the Nazis. It was an important testing ground for Americans that served them well in the remaining years of that war.
One of the few faults I have is the author's writing style which at times I found to be a bit overdone and pompous in terms of vocabulary. An expansive vocabulary is great, but never assume all readers will be on the same page with you.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent and thorough account of the North African Campaign
Comment: This is the first of three volumes by Rick Atkinson on WWII. It is excellent. The author has obviously done extensive research, evidenced by thorough accounting of action, details of events during quieter times and pages of supporting notes. More importantly, Mr Atkinson put these facts together into a very readable account of the war. He includes details not normally found in the typical accounts and for this reason alone the book is worth time. In addition he provides a perspective on various American commanders, wiping away some popular mythology. While this book is not an easy read, for those interested in history, especially military history, it is a page turner. I am very much looking forward to the next two volumes to be published in the coming years.
Rating: 5
Summary: An army's painful birth
Comment: The 1970 film PATTON opens with U.S. Army brass touring the Kasserine Pass battlefield in Tunisia shortly after the Yanks' stinging defeat at the hands of Rommel's Afrika Korps. In the next scene, General George Patton (George C. Scott) dramatically arrives at the headquarters of the II Corps to take command and turn things around for the Allies at the Battle of El Guettar. For those Americans whose only knowledge of the Western theater of WWII encompasses D-Day and its aftermath, and perhaps the battle for Italy, these cinematic images represent perhaps the total sum of acquaintance with the North African campaign. Yet, it's not until page 401 of AN ARMY AT DAWN that Patton takes over II Corps. There's so much more.
This book by Rick Atkinson is an extensively researched (29 pages of closely spaced sources) and engagingly written popular history of America's North African campaign in 1942-43. It begins, naturally, with the American and British amphibious landings of Operation Torch to capture Casablanca, Oran and Algiers, followed by the defeat of the Vichy French in Morocco and Algeria, and the bloody and stumbling but ultimately victorious confrontation with the Germans and Italians in Tunisia. AN ARMY AT DAWN is often not a pretty picture of Eisenhower's first outing as Supreme Commander or the U.S. Army's proficiency at large-scale land warfare, the latter not exercised since WWI. Indeed, as Rick Atkinson puts it, after defeating the fumbling French:
"... as (the Americans) wheeled around to the east and pulled out their Michelin maps of Tunisia, they believed they had actually been to war." What a rude awakening the next few months were to be! But the Tunisian anvil forged the mettle of the WWII commanders that U.S. mythology now holds in high esteem: Eisenhower, Patton, Clark, and Bradley.
AN ARMY AT DAWN has thirty-two pages of photos, plus well-drawn and extremely helpful maps of the various major battles, generally described from the perspective of battalion, regiment and brigade.
Atkinson's book is inclusive of so much more than combat narrative. For example, the reader follows with interest the genesis of the Special Relationship now enjoyed by America and Britain, which luckily survived at its infancy the scorn between Anglophobes Bradley, Patton and Clark and contemptuous Brits such as Montgomery and Alexander. And squabbling occurred even further up the command ladder. After a lengthy description of the Casablanca Conference attended by Roosevelt and Churchill and the top war councils of each, the author describes the concluding press conference held in the lush garden of a borrowed villa at which Roosevelt smoothly announced:
"The chiefs of staff have been in intimate touch. They have lived in the same hotel. Each man has become a definite personal friend of his opposite number on the other side." To which statement the author appends the tongue-in-cheek comment:
"The chiefs stared impassively from their foliage redoubts."
AN ARMY AT DAWN is a must read for any casual student of WWII. This is billed as "volume one of the liberation trilogy", and I look forward to the following two.
Oh, and as for Patton's depiction in the 1970 film, Atkinson's account confirms that George really did rush from his II Corps command post to fire his pearl-handled revolvers at strafing German aircraft.
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Title: The Long Gray Line : The American Journey of West Point's Class of 1966 by Rick Atkinson ISBN: 0805062912 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 15 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Crusade : The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War by Rick Atkinson ISBN: 0395710839 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 19 October, 1994 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: In the Company of Soldiers : A Chronicle of Combat by Rick Atkinson ISBN: 0805075615 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: 15 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Paris 1919 : Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan ISBN: 0375760520 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 09 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945 by Michael Beschloss ISBN: B0000CAR62 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: November, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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