The
Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson
An
Army at Dawn
Day
of Battle
The
Guns at Last Light
Atkinson
is a great writer and a terrific researcher. The books cover, in order, World
War II in North Africa, in Italy, and in Western Europe. Despite his tendency
to repeat lines or stories he really likes, I thoroughly enjoyed the series. He
doesn’t hesitate to point out flops, failures, and errors in judgement. He also
gives as much attention to the average GI or Tommy as he does to the leaders. I
finished the series with my disdain for Montgomery, and to a lesser extent for
Clark reinforced. But all the great generals made errors that cost lives,
military and civilian. Every student of military history and WWII buff should
read the trilogy.
Posts
I have those on my shelf and read them a couple of years ago. My feelings about Montgomery and Clark are about the same as yours.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite series of WWII books is the "History of United States Naval Operations in World War II" by Samuel Eliot Morison. I first read them in high school in the late 1970s because our small-town public library had a full set. I later purchased my own, and I've re-read the entire series half a dozen times since then. They read like an exciting thriller, even though you already know how it turns out.