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Summary: can't wait for the next book
Review: A wonderful book. Especially timely with the war going on.
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Summary: super book
Review: I couldn't put this book down. I learned more about Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Rommel, Monty and their subordinates from this book than all the others that I have read, combined. Atkinson's style is unadorned and sometimes amusing...easy reading. The African Campaign is not as deeply studied and reported as the more prominent battles on the european mainland, so there is a lot of history in this book that I had never read. I found it fascinating.
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Summary: Must Read for Students of Military History
Review: Although not as crisply written as "Crusade", the author's excellent account of "Gulf War One", this book is the definitive history of the little-known North African Campaign, November 1942-May 1943 of WW II. Mr. Atkinson's observations are the result of prodigious research using PRIMARY sources amply supported by copious endnotes.
His description of the major players is startling. Ike is portrayed as a career staff officer more obsessed with headquarters politics than the combat taking place. I was amazed at his inept, brief appearance at the Casablanca summit meeting between FDR, Churchill and the combined chiefs of staff. In addition, George Marshall and his staff appear as incompetent dolts next to the British with their constantly updated red leather briefing books. Patton comes across as a puerile, insensitive, whining martinet. At one point he orders Maj. Gen. "Pinky" Ward to send more officers to exposed positions at the front until enough of them are killed so that the elisted men will be impressed. After ordering this 55 year old to lead a charge to take a hill or not come back Patton worries that he sent this man to his death. The scene from the movie, "Patton", where he observes the rout of a Panzer thrust gives the impression that "Old Blood and Guts" planned and controlled the whole thing. Actually, he stood next to Gen. Teddy Roosevelt, XO of the 1st Infantry Div., whose show it was.
Mr. Atkinson erases the impression of close cooperation between the Americans and British. His chief deputies, British generals Alexander, Allen and Montgomery held the Americans in distain. Patton, Bradley and other American generals were out-and-out Anglophobes. Neither ally liked the French and their colonial troops.
There are several surprises in the book. I was unaware that in the spring of '43 American artillery shells were being equipped with radar proximity fuses so they would explode 40 feet above gound to maximize the kill zone. The treatment of German and Italian POWs was shocking and not too dissimilar to what American prisoners of the Japanese suffered. Some people, I think, will recoil when they learn that some American GIs used Arab civilians as target practice.
One could conclude that officers like Eisenhower and Fredendall were given command simply because they rewarded for sticking it out in the Army in the lean years between The War to End All Wars and 1940. Given the contradictory orders, poor coordination and communications, lack of air-ground support, inept leadership, distrust among the allies and horrible terrain and weather, one has to wonder what the outcome would have been had the German and Italian forces been adequately supplied and reinforced.
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Summary: Atkinson's first of three is a home run!
Review: An Army at Dawn - The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 is an excellent book written by Rick Atkinson, the author of The Long Gray Line and Crusade. . . Not only is this a definitive history of the war in North Africa, is it also gives the reader keen insight to the rebirth and growth of our Army in the opening days of our involvement in World War II. . . This book is as much about battlefield tactics and soldiers as it is about high-level strategic planning, generals, and politicians. . . Mr. Atkinson's writing style keeps the reader involved and engaged - this is not your average "dry" read of history. . .
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Summary: Gift to my father
Review: Based on a review in the NY Times I gave this book to my father in January. He was captured on Feb. 14, 1943 in a battle described in the book. I don't think I could have given him a more appreciated gift at this time in his life. As he reads it he tells me how right it is, how relevant it is to him, and how much he is learning about what was going on "above him" (he was a 2nd Lt. just out of ROTC). I plan to go over it with him the next time we are together than read it myself.
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Summary: Have A Dictionary Handy To Learn While Enjoying
Review: Another well written book by Mr. Atkinson. This first in a projected series on World War Two talks about the North African Campaign as seen from headquarters and down on the ground with our boys. The book lacks the intricate details of his book about West Pointers in Vietnam, and that suited me fine. Have a dictionary handy to look up all the vocabulary-building words. If you are a history buff, you will enjoy this. And, in that case, I:
also recommend Rick Atkinson's "The Long Gray Line" and Norman Thomas Remick's "West Point: Character Leadership Education...".
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Summary: An army awakes in Africa
Review: Atkinson does a dazzling job of exploring the early part of the American campaign in Europe. In November 1942, war in Europe was not an American experience and D-Day in France remained eighteen months away. The American army was untested against the Germans. Atkinson provides a rich, colorful - his use of the language and the local flora add a dimension that goes well beyond historic reporting - story of an army defining itself in battle. He is a lively writer, not a dry historian. He offers deep, personal glimpses, snippets of conversations, excerpts of letter home. And he teaches the reader.Africa became a school for the Americans. Through a careful recount of the battle, from the November landings to the May triumph in Tunis, Atkinson shows that there were painful lessons to be learned:
1. The American army had been through lean years prior to the war. Few in numbers, ill equipped, poorly trained, the first U.S. forces to fight the Germans came mentally unprepared and, too often, naïve and overconfident.
2. American military leaders, like its foot soldiers, often lacked experience, savvy and the leaders lacked the killer instinct needed to drive their own forces and to accept the inevitable losses that come in the horrors of war. Decisions that led to the death of men haunt any commander; delaying decisions may lead to even more deaths. Leadership started with credibility and some senior officers simply lacked it.
3. Logistics can win or lose a battle: trucks, railways, ports, shipping.
4. The Americans had to learn to work with skeptical Brits and to hate the Germans. Neither task was easy. Thousands of American soldiers died in making the point.
5. Massive American resources and numbers were not going to be enough to overcome German military skill and tenacity.
6. German tank technology and infantry tactics could resist American numerical superiority for a long battle.
7. Terrain and rain matter. For six months, the American army went to war and to school. Timidity and ill-formed strategies extracted a high price. Without these lessons learned, the victories that followed the campaign in Tunisia would have been even more expensive if a reality at all. "Army at dawn" is an excellent history of a historically less visible theater of the war. With more than one hundred pages of endnotes, data are abundant. There are many very good maps, although some direct map links to the text, perhaps some numbered sequences, detailed captions for the maps would have provided more clarity, more than Attaching dates to the rapid, complex movement of forces is helpful but hard to parse at times.
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Summary: Forgotten History
Review: The movie Patton made the public aware of America's first foray into the ETO. The US was not ready to go head to head with the armies in Europe already at war for over 3 years. This book covers the period in which the US Army first took offensive action in Europe. In spite of its size it is very readable and full of first person accounts and the view from the top. One sees the lack of direction and experience that plagued our early war efforts, and how this army would be able to grow into the same one that stormed Normandy. The book covers the British, German, and French view as well, and talks about the inside deals made with the Vichy during Torch.
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Summary: A Surprising and Impressive History
Review: Rick Atkinson's "An Army at Dawn" made me begin to see World War II, at least the war against Nazi Germany, in a new and clearer light. It describes the US and British invasion of North Africa in 1942 (Operation Torch) and the subsequent allied campaign in Northwest Africa. Atkinson's book is exquisitely researched and written, and was a delight to listen to (I bought it on CD - abridged - to listen to during my commute). I understand that it is to be the first in a three part series on World War II. Atkinson reshaped my perception of World War II, to different degrees, on a variety of topics. First, while I had known that the condition of the U.S. Army trailed that of Germany before the war, Atkinson supplied countless dismaying examples, running the gamut from shockingly inexperienced leadership to just plain poor packing (packing your weapons and supplies well when preparing for an invasion, it turns out, is a lot more important than you might have thought). Second, he explained the importance of the campaign in Africa: by invading Africa, the Allies opened a southern approach to the Axis that was more inviting than that provided by an aggressive assault across the English Channel. Finally, and most interestingly, Atkinson paints a picture of a steadily building competence in American, and British, operations in North Africa. Atkinson shows us Eisenhower learning to be an Allied Commander even as we watch green soldiers and greener junior officers "grow up" in a bitter campaign against a determined foe. In a curious parallel, English and American cooperation matures during this time, as Americans begin, finally, to show some mettle and as the American industrial effort infuses the war in Europe with an endless stream of materiel that presages an enduring American military hegemony. In effect, Atkinson argues, North Africa was a vast training ground, a warm-up, in preparation for the main event. Atkinson displays a marvelous command of the English language. His descriptions are a delight to hear (and, I assume, to read), and breathe real life into the story. I think that the superior writing quality, vivid imagery, and the quality of the language used, is what makes the difference between this being a competent and novel history, and it being a captivating classic. I'm confident that in years to come, "An Army at Dawn" will be considered a necessary component of any topical WWII bookshelf. Another Amazon reviewer criticized Atkinson for being "glib" in his descriptions of battlefield carnage. I have a far different perspective, perhaps aided by the fact that the CD engages the author to read his work. Hearing Atkinson read the book makes it clear that he is not glib or detached about the horrors of war. Instead, I think Atkinson is thoughtfully balancing the story of a military campaign and its attendant strategic narrative with a thorough and frank reminder of the human cost of war. An endearing feature of the book is the attention Atkinson pays to common soldiers, their stories and their importance; he never lets the reader forget that during war good men die, often horribly, and that there is a dreadful social cost involved in that. The author has painstakingly researched literally dozens of peoples' histories, before and during the war, and few of them are personages anyone will have heard of before. This attention, importantly, never lets us forget the dark side of war, especially a war for which the dark side has received less than its share of historians' attention. "An Army at Dawn" is an important work on World War II. It is painstakingly researched, carefully composed and masterfully written. I give it my highest recommendation, and simply say that I?m confident that you will not be disappointed by it. I listened to it on CD; while I now wish that I'd read it in print, the audio version was excellent and Atkinson's reading of it is well worth hearing. Enjoy.
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Summary: Good History and a Great Read
Review: In too many histories, the campaign in Africa is quickly passed over as a prelude to the main act...the assault on Europe in 1944. But in fact there was seven months of hard fighting across Northern Africa that proved critical in turning the untried American Army into a hardened fighting force. Rick Atkinson has written a fascinating account that captures it all, from the point of view of privates as well as generals. Familiar characters stride these across these pages: Ike, Mony, Patton, Bradley. But he also introduces us to the lesser known soldiers who fought across Algeria and Tunisa. I have read many WWII histories and biographies but I came across incident after incident and character after character I knew nothing about.His characterizations are vivid and his battle descriptions riveting...especially his account of commando operations gone wrong on the day of the invasion, and the famous fiasco as Kasserine Pass. Atkinson is not a romantic. His account makes it clear that there were cowards and callous criminals fighting alongside heroes and good guys in North Africa. He does not shy away from relating the egocentric foibles of generals or the matter of fact atrocities committed by American soldiers. But most of all he tells the engaging story of how an American army and it's soldiers found itself in the sands of North Africa, and readied itself for the onslaught to come. An Army at Dawn is the first of a 3-part trilogy on the European campaigns of World War II, and I eagerly await the next two books.
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