Sunday, March 16, 2008
'The Day of Battle'
After getting sidetracked by another book, I finally finished Rick Atkinson's 'The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy 1943-1944,' the second book in Atkinson's planned 'liberation trilogy.' Quickie Hub Blog review: I liked it, but not nearly as much Atkinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning 'An Army at Dawn.' Maybe it was just the topic. The Italian campaign was truly depressing. Though it knocked the Italians out of the war and sucked hundreds of thousands of German troops from other fronts (justifying it, in my opinion), the Allied generalship was quite mediocre, leading to futile WWI-style frontal attacks that spilled much blood for little ground. I wish Atkinson had been more pointed in his criticism of Gen. Mark Clark, who headed the U.S. Fifth Army and showed a consistent lack of imagination during the campaign. The guy seemed to have never heard of 'flanks' -- except when protecting his own. ...
After getting sidetracked by another book, I finally finished Rick Atkinson's 'The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy 1943-1944,' the second book in Atkinson's planned 'liberation trilogy.' Quickie Hub Blog review: I liked it, but not nearly as much Atkinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning 'An Army at Dawn.' Maybe it was just the topic. The Italian campaign was truly depressing. Though it knocked the Italians out of the war and sucked hundreds of thousands of German troops from other fronts (justifying it, in my opinion), the Allied generalship was quite mediocre, leading to futile WWI-style frontal attacks that spilled much blood for little ground. I wish Atkinson had been more pointed in his criticism of Gen. Mark Clark, who headed the U.S. Fifth Army and showed a consistent lack of imagination during the campaign. The guy seemed to have never heard of 'flanks' -- except when protecting his own. ...
