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The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944
by Rick Atkinson
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Synopses & Reviews In the second volume of his epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy.
In An Army at Dawn — winner of the Pulitzer Prize — Rick Atkinson provided a dramatic and authoritative history of the Allied triumph in North Africa. Now, in The Day of Battle, he follows the strengthening American and British armies as they invade Sicily in July 1943 and then, mile by bloody mile, fight their way north toward Rome.
The Italian campaign's outcome was never certain; in fact, Roosevelt, Churchill, and their military advisers engaged in heated debate about whether an invasion of the so-called soft underbelly of Europe was even a good idea. But once under way, the commitment to liberate Italy from the Nazis never wavered, despite the agonizingly high price. The battles at Salerno, Anzio, and Monte Cassino were particularly difficult and lethal, yet as the months passed, the Allied forces continued to drive the Germans up the Italian peninsula. Led by Lieutenant General Mark Clark, one of the war's most complex and controversial commanders, American officers and soldiers became increasingly determined and proficient. And with the liberation of Rome in June 1944, ultimate victory at last began to seem inevitable.
Drawing on a wide array of primary source material, written with great drama and flair, this is narrative history of the first rank. With The Day of Battle, Atkinson has once again given us the definitive account of one of history's most compelling military campaigns. Review: "Atkinson surpasses his Pulitzer-winning An Army at Dawn in this empathetic, perceptive analysis of the second stage in the U.S. Army's grassroots development from well-intentioned amateurs to the most formidable fighting force of World War II. The battles in Sicily and Italy developed the combat effectiveness and the emotional hardness of a U.S. Army increasingly constrained to bear the brunt of the Western allies' war effort, he argues. Demanding terrain, harsh climate and a formidable opponent confirmed the lesson of North Africa: the only way home was through the Germans: kill or be killed. Atkinson is pitilessly accurate demonstrating the errors and misjudgments of senior officers, Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander, Gen. Mark Clark and their subordinates commanding corps and divisions. The price was paid in blood by the men at the sharp end: British and French, Indians and North Africans — above all, Americans. All that remained of the crew of one burned-out tank were the fillings of their teeth, for one example. The Mediterranean campaign is frequently dismissed by soldiers and scholars as a distraction from the essential objective of invading northern Europe. Atkinson makes a convincing case that it played a decisive role in breaking German power, forcing the Wehrmacht onto a defensive it could never abandon." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review: "The airborne operations were a disaster. British gliders plummeted into the sea, American paratroopers were scattered all over the island. Seaborne landings went scarcely better: Troops plunged into murderous fire, often as not on the wrong beach. But somehow it worked. Grimly, tenaciously, groups of infantrymen bent over against the fire and shouldered forward into Sicily. This ... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) is a season for remembering World War II. 'Saving Private Ryan,' 'Band of Brothers' and Ken Burns' TV epic 'The War' remind us that the generation that bore the battle is slipping away. Now comes Rick Atkinson's monumental 'The Day of Battle,' a history of the Sicilian and Italian campaigns, the second book in his planned trilogy of the U.S. Army at war in Europe. It shoves sentimentality aside and shows us, plainly, how unskilled the army was in 1943, its rawness and profligacy a perfect reflection of an outraged and rapidly mobilized democracy. Atkinson forces us to remember that even in a 'good' war, error and waste march alongside bravery and sacrifice. In 'An Army at Dawn,' Atkinson followed the army from its almost comic-opera landings in French North Africa through its baptism in war at the hands of Rommel's Afrika Corps. 'The Day of Battle' picks up from there, with the British and American armies regrouping in Tunisia while the allies debate their next step. The Americans argue for an allied buildup, to be followed eventually by an invasion of Europe through France. But Winston Churchill champions an immediate invasion to knock the Italians out of the war and relieve pressure on the Soviets. The British prime minister sways FDR, leading to the Sicily invasion and the costly campaign up the Italian boot, where names like Salerno and Anzio join in the American memory with Antietam and Gettysburg. Beginning in 1943, war in the Italian theater is fought over mountains and valleys that favor German defenses. The weather is dreadful: blazing heat in summer, rain, snow and bottomless mud in winter. Stripped repeatedly of troops for the Normandy invasion in 1944, the Italian campaign gradually becomes a holding action, a sideshow. But to the soldiers who fought there, and to the U.S. Army's leaders, it was a bloody schoolhouse of war. Modern readers may be repelled by the amateurishness of the American generals, most of whom had been majors and lieutenant colonels just a few years earlier. Atkinson is unsparing of their blunders. Eisenhower allows the Germans to slip away from Sicily. Patton is high-strung, profane and unpredictable. Mark Clark is duplicitous. Yet they learn and grow. Eisenhower emerges after Italy as the indispensable leader of the war in Europe. Patton becomes a byword for bold, slashing attack. Clark matures in command. Soldiers, as always, pay the butcher's bill: Friendly anti-aircraft fire shoots down our own paratroopers; battles are mismanaged at Gela, Brolo and Troina, where the fabled First Division — the Big Red One — gets mangled. After Sicily, the allies land at Salerno and later at Anzio, where cautious generals concede the high ground to the Germans, who then shell the stalled beachhead for months. (Afterward, two GIs in a Bill Mauldin cartoon stand on the hills and marvel, 'My God! Here they wuz and there we wuz.') As the allies drive northward to relieve the Anzio beachhead, their way is blocked by the mountaintop abbey of Monte Cassino, which must be taken. And so the beautiful abbey becomes the abatoir of the European theater. Through the wet and miserable months of January to May 1944, German paratroopers in the rubble hold off repeated attacks by American, British, French, New Zealand, Indian, Gurkha, Moroccan and Polish troops. The U.S. 34th Division loses nearly 80 percent of the men in its rifle battalions; by the time the battered Poles raise their flag over the ruins on May 18, the allies have suffered around 54,000 casualties, the Germans about 20,000 — imprecise numbers because many of the dead are still lost, pounded into the mud and rubble or in forgotten graves. How unbearably anonymous and squalid was their fate; yet Atkinson captures the dignity of those condemned to it. A dying Pole tells his comrades, 'You don't know how dreadful death can be. Now I shall have to miss the rest of the battle.' At the fighting's height, an enemy voice breaks into the radio net of the Coldstream Guards. 'You are all brave,' the German says. 'You are all gentlemen.' With this book, Rick Atkinson cements his place among America's great popular historians, in the tradition of Bruce Catton and Stephen Ambrose. Though 'The Day of Battle''s tone is appropriately somber — the story of civilian deaths in Italy from allied bombing and German executions is especially sickening — its underlying theme is optimistic, even triumphal. Atkinson skillfully conveys the growing power of the U.S. Army, pouring men and materiel forward in an inexhaustible stream and, at the front, the toughening of American troops as they advance and beat the hell out of an expert and implacable enemy. This is gritty history. A sergeant in the 141st Infantry writes home about his friends: 'There are so many of them sleeping under the sod, waiting for us, the living, to pick up and carry on.' But the GIs understand the stakes, perhaps more clearly than any American soldiers before or since. Capt. Henry Waskow, whose death in Italy was the subject of correspondent Ernie Pyle's finest wartime dispatch, tells his sister in a final letter that he was not afraid to die, because 'I will have done my share to make this world a better place in which to live. Maybe when the lights go on again all over the world, free people can be happy and gay again.' Military historians will long debate whether the Italian campaign was necessary. The final lines stabilized north of Rome, and there was no breakthrough until the last months of the war. The day Rome fell, the big news was the Normandy invasion. Many of the generals who learned their trade in Sicily and Italy — Eisenhower and Patton among them — would fight in France, leaving Clark and his weather-beaten infantry in the northern Italian mountains. But as Atkinson's history makes clear, it was Sicily and then Italy that became the American Army's bitter finishing school for battle. And after Salerno, Anzio and Cassino, the tide turned against Nazi Germany in the West. The errors the generals made, and the price paid by the troops, would already have receded into history but for the remaining few who keep yellowing letters and faded pictures, and for this fine book, a fitting testament to the GIs of the Fifth Army and the Italian campaign. Robert Killebrew is a retired U.S. Army colonel who writes and speaks on defense issues." Reviewed by Robert Killebrew, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)Review: "[A] triumph of narrative history, elegantly written, thick with unforgettable description and rooted in the sights and sounds of battle." William Grimes, The New York Times Review: "[H]orrifying, fascinating.... The Day of Battle would be harder to read if Atkinson did not leaven the war's horrors with its consolations: the beauty and history of the countryside, the smell of its flowers, the taste of its wines. And there are great characters." USA TodayReview: "Atkinson conveys the confusion and grinding difficulty of the Allied advance as experienced by ordinary soldiers while also providing interesting insights into the character of some of the top commanders." Booklist Review: "Atkinson's clear prose, perceptive analysis, and grasp of the personalities and nuances of the campaigns make his book an essential purchase." Library Journal Review: "Literate, lucid, fast-paced history — an excellent survey of the Mediterranean campaign." Kirkus Review Review: "Anyone who devoured An Army at Dawn with relish will be delighted with his account of the Sicilian and Italian campaign. All the same ingredients are here, from sharp one-liners...to brilliantly observed character portraits." James Holland, The New York Times Book ReviewAbout the Author
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780805062892
- Subtitle:
- The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944
- Author:
- Atkinson, Rick
- Publisher:
- Henry Holt & Company
- Subject:
- Military - World War II
- Subject:
- World war, 1939-1945
- Subject:
- Campaigns
- Subject:
- Europe - Italy
- Subject:
- General History
- Subject:
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Campaigns -- Italy.
- Subject:
- Italy History, Military 1914-1945.
- Edition Description:
- Trade Cloth
- Publication Date:
- October 2007
- Binding:
- Hardcover
- Grade Level:
- General/trade
- Language:
- English
- Illustrations:
- 20 maps and 2 16-pg. inserts
- Pages:
- 816
- Dimensions:
- 9.25 x 6.13 in
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