The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (The Liberation Trilogy, 3)

There are journalists and observers of the travails and triumphs of the human race, both contemporary and retrospective. Then there are journalists who choose the more exacting task of writing history: of extracting from the chaos of events and the inundation of words associated with those events some woven threads that can be followed to make sense of what happened and what was said about it, and to help the rest of us get a grasp of the causes, significance and effects. And then, finally, there are historians who are great writers, whose chronicles crackle and hum with electrifying narrative, whose descriptions of events are so loaded with detail that they almost have to be absorbed like poetry. Rick Atkinson is one of that latter handful, a journalist and historian who is also a great writer. Among contemporary and recent practitioners of the craft of military history, only Michael Herr is his equal. In 2003, after several libraries of books about World War II had been written, Atkinson published An Army At Dawn, the story of the allied campaigns in North Africa in 1942 and 1943, and announced his intent to deliver a set of books about the Atlantic theater of the war which he called “the Liberation Trilogy.” After all those volumes about that war, what combination of audacity and conviction could move a thinking person to produce another 2000 pages of yet more description of events which had already been so thoroughly described? However Atkinson himself might answer that question, those of us who value history that is truly well-wrought, who read the books of even a justly acclaimed historian like Steven Ambrose and can’t help wanting to correct his grammar or re-cast his prose to more effective form, can be thankful. This book, these books, comprise a history that is truly a pleasure to read, an accounting of the greatest uncivilized civil event in human annals that stands up to the saga it recounts. For someone trying to tell a story that has been told from as many angles as the Second World War, the whole game is deciding which details to include in the familiar framework of the grand events and which details to omit, as most details have to be omitted. Anyone who has read a substantial subset of the chronicles of that war from Shirer, Ambrose, Tolland, Manchester, Trevor-Roper, Churchill, et al knows what’s being excluded. The question is whether the details which are included in the overall war framework, which give color and texture to the story, will both bear the heft of events and provide a sufficiently distinctive and coherent collection of facts to justify the existence of yet another book on the subject. Happily, Atkinson’s choices seem well-made, and his phenomenal ability to cram descriptive detail into almost every sentence makes his trilogy well worth the time to read, and a true delight to savor and absorb. To be sure, there is no single quotation which can match the one Capt. George Revelle wrote to his wife on the eve of the Sicily landings, recorded in the second book of the trilogy, The Day of Battle, which is certainly one of the most trenchant and penetrating evaluations of war which any human meditation on the inexpressible senselessness of organized killing can ever have struck: “We little people,” Revelle wrote his wife, “must solve these catastrophes by mutual slaughter, and force the world back to reason.” Yet Atkinson’s narrative is so well-written, his selection of detail so appropriate, the flow of his account so well-organized and natural, that this third volume fittingly completes the triumph of his trilogy. If you have any interest in history, war or the period of World War II, you will not go wrong to choose these books.

The Liberation Trilogy: Vol. 1, An Army at Dawn, The War in North Africa, 1942- 1943; Vol. 2, The Day of Battle, The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944; Vol. 3, The Guns at Last light, The War in Western Europe 1944-1945. These books, as the titles imply, cover the war in North Africa and Europe in WWII. Representing a 15-year effort by its author, Rick Atkinson, it is a monumental work. Moreover, it is engrossing, interesting, and intensely readable. The author weaves an exciting narrative that is more like a novel than a history book. He takes you from the highest pinnacles of power to the anguish of generals and colonels on the battlefield making hard decisions, decisions that affect not only their own men but also those of other allied forces and civilians who just happened to be in the way. There he paints a whirling picture of huge armies wrapped in the throes of deadly combat. From Kasserine Pass to Anzio to the Normandy Beaches to Bastogne, thence to Berlin, Mr. Atkinson lets you see war through the eyes of the dog face soldier as it really is - a bloody, dirty, deadly, weary, mostly terrifying, no-holds-barred matchup between two fiercely dangerous wild animals chewing up 30-ton panzers and individual soldiers with equal ease. He walks you through the blazing sands of Morocco, the all-consuming mud of the Italian peninsula, to the frozen days and nights of the Ardennes in the Battle of the Bulge. This was the 1940s equivalent of "the times that try men's souls", to borrow a phrase from Thomas Paine. He spares no one. Even household names like Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin in the conference room or Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Montgomery, and DeGaulle on the battlefield are held accountable with his pen, as sharp as the point of a bayonet, when they foul up, which is far too often. After all, the well-known WWII acronym SNAFU - situation normal, all fouled up - was devised by the lowly American GI in the fourth decade of the twentieth Century. For in the final analysis, it was he who would pay the ultimate price for ineptitude. Atkinson writes of the education of the American armed forces, an education achieved the hard way - on the battlefield. It is sometimes painful to read how inept our armies were in the early days when they naively pitted themselves against Irwin Rommel's veteran Afrika Korps. The British have a saying, "you do not know war until you have fought the German." We didn't know and we got murdered. The American GI had to become dog-mean, merciless, and he had to learn to hate. In Mr. Atkinson's words, "the wolf had to rise in the throat." When that finally happened, the GI became one of the most effective fighting men ever to grace any battlefield. Not until he learned would he have some chance of prevailing and surviving. And so, he did. His writing is often poetic. For example here is the last paragraph of the last chapter of the last book in the trilogy: For the first time in nearly six years, the sun set on a Europe without front lines, a Europe at peace. Lights scintillated - truck lights, jeep lights, tent lights, flashlights, building lights, farmhouse lights, everything lit up. Night stole over the Continent, creeping west from the Vistula to the Oder, and then to the Elbe and the Rhine and the Seine. Darkness enfolded a thousand battlefields, at Remagen and St. Vith, Arnem and St. Lo, Caen and Omaha Beach. Darkness fell and the lights came on again. If you are a WWII buff, this trilogy should be part of your library as it is part of mine.

Another fast moving account of the war in Europe to complete this gripping trilogy. A skilful blend from the strategic big picture to the harrowing personal tragedies.

Very nicely packed book with no pages bending! impressive.

I was hooked on all three volumes. A great read! This is the third in the trilogy! Atkinson is an engaging writer. Please take the time to read all three books, and in the proper order. You will appreciate the depth and empathy that Atkinson has for the "fighting" man. A sad commentary on the politics of warfare, in the armed forces. And even more tragic is the needless loss of life for the men on the ground, from poor judgement, and incompetence, of the commanders.

Very interesting triology of the US entering WWII.

Quite simply the finest history of WWII told from a US army perspective. Impeccably researched and written it gives a true account of how American forces moved from a ragtag army of novices to the fighting force they became by the end of the war. It is also a fine account of the difficult issues faced by often conflicting commanders of the alliance and how the diplomatic skills of Eisenhower were paramount during the conflict. Highly recommended and an easy read.