Home
| The Liberation Trilogy (Minus 1) |
|
|
|
| Written by Michael Cannon | |||||||||||
| Tuesday, 11 November 2008 | |||||||||||
|
An Army at Dawn The books reviewed here form the first two volumes of Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy. Many years ago I had the opportunity to meet the author at a book signing at West Point, NY. I had picked up one of his books (Army at Dawn) for my father for Christmas. My father is a real character (retired psychologist, retired from the Army Reserves/National Guard, PhD, working as a security guard for a while at 70+ because he was bored!) and so I asked Mr. Atkinson to sign the book "To a soldier, scholar, and affable old fart...." I told Mr Atkinson a bit about my father and explained that he did not have to sign it that way if he felt it was crass or crude but he just smiled and signed away. My father, of course, loved it. I thought it was gracious of Mr. Atkinson to do that and so he's been one of my favorite authors since then.   These books describe America's war effort in the European theater from the North African landings through the war in Italy. They remind me of Bruce Catton's books on the American Civil War, which is high praise from my perspective. Unlike academic histories which pour over decisions looking for revisionist interpretations or new angles on the decision makers and their conduct of the war, Mr Atkinson presents the war as it happened. Personal vignettes on the war are interspersed between discussions on how decisions were reached and what the process was for coming to those decisions. I find the writing style fluid and fun. Having been around soldiers and soldiering most of my life, a lot of what Atkinson writes about rings true. Here's a bit about Audie Murphy: Off they went again at a gallop, again west by north. Among those American doughboys was the nineteen-year-old son of a Texas sharecropper who in the next two years would become the most celebrated soldier in the U.S. Army. A fifth-grade dropout, he had picked cotton, worked in a filling station [my note here, a filling station, also known as a filin' station, is a gas station in West Texas], and fixed radios. Until enlisting, he had never been a hundred miles from the four-room shack in Hunt County that housed eleven children. The Army had issued him a uniform six inches too long in the sleeves and tried to make him a cook. In basic training, he balked at buying GI insurance because "I don't intend to get killed any way and it costs pretty high"; he still owed money for his mother's funeral. Bunkmates in the States had called him Baby—he weighed 112 pounds—but the nickname disappeared as he added muscle... he had been promoted, so he was now Corporal Audie Leon Murphy. He had a slow, stooped gait, as if stalking prey. Audie Murphy's marksmanship derived from squirrel hunting, but he would learn to stalk Germans by the smell of their tobacco smoke. Hunt County had put a flinty edge on him. "There never was a peace time in my life, a time when things were good," he later said. "I can't remember ever being young in my life." When a chaplain tried to nudge him closer to God, Murphy replied, "You do the prayin' and I'll do the shootin'." As the 1st Battalion of the 15th Infantry Regiment plunged through the Sicilian interior, he did his first real shootin' while leading a patrol. Two Italian officers bolted from an observation post, and as they mounted a pair of white horses, Murphy dropped to a knee. "I fire twice," he recalled. "The men tumble from the horses, roll over and lie still." Many more would lie still before Murphy could return to Texas festooned with medals, but he had already shed any illusions. "Ten seconds after the first shot was fired at me by an enemy soldier," he said, "combat was no longer glamorous." Presentations of higher ranking officers are similar in form. Here's a description of Montgomery: [Montgomery reilied on] meticulous preparation, ...firepower, and a conception of his soldiers "not as warriors itching to get into action, which they were not, but as a workforce doing an unpleasant but necessary job," in the words of the historian Michael Howard. He also accumulated various tics and prejudices: a habit of repeating himself; the stilted use of cricket metaphors; an antipathy to cats; a tendency to exaggerate his battlefield progress; "an obsession for always being right"; and the habit of telling his assembled officers, "There will now be an interval of two minutes for coughing. After that there will be no coughing." No battle captain kept more regular hours. He was awakened with a cup of tea by a manservant at 6:30 A.M. and bedtime in his trailer—captured from an Italian field marshal in Tunisia—came promptly at 9:30 P.M. In Africa he had seen both glory, at El Alamein, and glory's ephemerality, in the tedious slog through Tunisia. Montgomery much preferred the former. Now the empire's most celebrated soldier, he received sacks of fan mail, including at least nine marriage proposals, lucky charms ranging from coins to white heather, and execrable odes to his pluck. Professing to disdain such adulation, he had a talent for "backing into the limelight," as one observer remarked. On leave in London after Tunis fell, still wearing his beret and desert kit, he checked into Claridge's under the thin pseudonym of "Colonel Lennox," then took repeated bows from his box seat at a musical comedy as ecstatic theatergoers clapped and clapped and clapped. "His love of publicity is a disease, like alcoholism or taking drugs," said General Ismay, Churchill's chief of staff, "and it sends him equally mad." Success in snatching Highway 124 would encourage Montgomery to disregard both peers and superiors, especially the indulgent Alexander. "I do not think Alex is sufficiently strong and rough with him," General Brooke wrote of Montgomery in his diary, adding, "The Americans do not like him and it will always be a difficult matter to have him fighting in close proximity to them." If audacious among allies, Montgomery became ever more cautious with adversaries. "The scope of operations must be limited to what is practicable," he advised John Gunther in Sicily. "The general must refuse to be rushed." Still, his own men cherished his ability to convince them "to believe in their task, to believe in themselves, and to believe in their leader." Sailing about in the big command car, he stopped to ask a Canadian unit, "Do you know why I never have defeats?" "Well, I will tell you. My reputation as a great general means too much to me.... You can't be a great general and have defeats.... So you can be quite sure any time I commit you to battle you are bound to win." And one other series of anecdotes and descriptions. This time on Mark Clark. [My father told me when I was growing up that there were still bounties on Mark Clark in certain Texas counties because of his handling of the 36th Texas Guard Division at the Rapido River. I would not be surprised if those are still around....] George Marshall had decreed that the "vital qualifications" for senior U.S. Army officers included "leadership, force, and vigor." Too often such traits were most conspicuous in their absence. Dawley's deficiencies made him an easy scapegoat, but he was hardly the only senior officer still struggling to meet the chief's high standard. Mark Clark was also in over his head at Salerno, as he showed in matters ranging from the confusion over H-hour to his approval of a plan that left a gaping hole between his corps. Salerno annealed Clark: he emerged stronger and wiser, if still so autocratic and aloof that soldiers now called him Marcus Aurelius Clarkus. "He is not so good as Bradley in winning, almost without effort, the complete confidence of everybody around him," Eisenhower wrote Marshall on September 20. "He is not the equal of Patton in refusing to see anything but victory in any situation that arises. But he is still carrying his full weight." Others wondered. "Mark Clark really didn't have a true feel for what soldiers could and could not do, and how much power it took to accomplish a particular mission," James Gavin later wrote to Matthew Ridgway. Whether Clark had the mettle of a great field commander was yet to be discovered, a central subplot in the unfolding drama that was the war in Italy. Still, the Allies were on the continent, never to be expelled again. An alert and skilled enemy, fighting on favorable terrain with the advantage of terrestrial rather than maritime lines of communication, had been cudgeled aside. A portal had been won, and through it poured men and materiel; from two divisions on September 3, the Allied host in Italy grew to thirteen by the end of the month, with captured airfields that would contribute to pummeling the Reich. Precisely where they were going and what they would do when they arrived there remained in doubt. The avowed strategic purpose of the Italian campaign—to knock Italy from the war and to engage as many German divisions as possible—had been at least partly fulfilled. How to completely satisfy those war aims was as unclear in Salerno as it was in Washington, London, and Algiers. The strategic drift persisted. That was neither the province nor the fault of those who had fought their way ashore. Perhaps only a battlefield before the battle is quieter than the same field after the shooting stops; the former is silent with anticipation, the latter with a pure absence of noise. Calm now settled over Salerno as the troops stood down, resting for the long march ahead. You get a feel for Atkinson's opinions of these men by what he presents. This is, of course, the choice of the writer. However, the selections tend to leave you agreeing with Atkinson's perceptioons of all of the higher level leaders, and in fairness to Atkinson, he covers them, warts, beauty marks, and all. I like this series of books. They will be a slog for some people as they are not the kind of mind candy turned out by the Black Library (which I also enjoy). The books will give you an excellent feel for the experiences of those who fought in this era nad for that reason they are highly recommended. The scenario material you can pull from these is just an extra bonus.
Only registered users can write comments! Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.12 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved. |
|||||||||||
| Last Updated ( Saturday, 27 December 2008 ) | |||||||||||
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
SOTR1949 Login
Current articles
Featured Article
| US Armored Infantry |
 |
| Back in the late 70s or early 80s, Duke Seifried evangelized the use of washes in painting miniatures. Once again he was ahead of his time. Lately, Dr. Phil Hendry has been doing something similar for Warlord Games with his use of Army Painter products and dipping. Now back in Texas there are really only two kinds of dip - one for sheep and one for the lower lip. I liked Phil's results, however, and decided to give it a shot with my US Armored infantry platoon. |
| Read More >> |
Syndicate
