Perhaps it is a tautology to say that no commander has ever entered a battle he has won before. Every new battle, every new war demands innovation. Only fools enter war confident they have mastered every contingency. The Allies entered the African campaign of WWII with a lot of preconceptions, but with few soldiers who had been there before. It seems so odd to us today reading that Dwight D. Eisenhower was named Supreme Commander of the Allied force with no experience leading an army into battle. None. Certainly the British generals under him scratched their head at the decision. Eisenhower had been in war before, but not from such lofty heights. In this account of the Allied invasion of North Africa we see Eisenhower make a lot of costly mistakes. Still the Allies beat one of the best armies ever assembled led by some of the best generals on the planet. To be fair, many of the Allies' costly mistakes came from a certain newness to the situation, a newness even the British generals took time cluing in to. The US Army may have fought in WWI, but they had never invaded a hostile continent before, nor supplied the soldiers of three nations to do it. They bumbled, they stalled for time, they failed to move in for the kill most of the time. But in Atkinson's great account, what the US soldiers had to learn first was to really hate the enemy. When you really hate the enemy you kill with abandon. Bernard Montgomery hated the enemy. His 8th British Army fought Rommel's army in their schoolhouse and pushed him back. And what the Allies had to learn was to trust and learn from each other, and to learn from their foes. Once the Americans, British, and French buried their differences and worked together, they found the secret sauce. As General George Patton said to his soldiers, " Once you look across at what was once the face of your best friend and see a gooey mess, you'll know what to do." (I paraphrase.) ( )

History told in literary prose. Listened on Audible while driving to Syzygy job. I DO have a physical copy of this book. ( )

OK history but a bit tedious in parts. Helped me understand the war in N. Africa a little better. ( )

“Memory, too, has transcendent power, even as we swiftly move toward the day when not a single participant remains alive to tell his tale, and the epic of World War II forever slips into national mythology. The author’s task is to authenticate: to warrant that history and memory give integrity to the story, to aver that all this really happened. But the final few steps must be the reader’s. For among mortal powers, only imagination can bring back the dead.”

The first book in the Liberation trilogy provides a riveting account of the Allied landings in North Africa during World War II. Allied troops landed in Algeria and Morocco, overpowered the Vichy French, and fought the Axis forces on the way to Tunisia, the planned launching point for the invasion of Italy. It is a detailed description of tactics, strategy, and impact of military operations. It includes profiles of many commanders, including Commander-in-Chief Eisenhower, Alexander, Bradley, Montgomery, Patton, Rommel, and von Arnim.

This is an exceptional work of non-fiction. Atkinson’s writing is outstanding. As I read this book, the descriptions were so vivid that I felt as if a movie were running through my head.

“Not until dusk did the British vanguard reach the col below Longstop’s northwest face. Rain had transformed the Medjerda valley into a vast brown sea too quaggy even for mules. A brace of bullocks was harnessed to pull a few guns forward. Wheeled vehicles bogged down 5,000 yards from the hill. Even tracked carriers could get no closer than Chassart Teffaha, a farm hamlet two miles away. There, in a damp cellar that stank like a slaughterhouse, surgeons worked by candlelight over boys beyond surgeoning; stretcher bearers dumped another load and headed back into the night without even bothering to fold stretchers stiff with blood.”

The author inserts plentiful quotes from journals, correspondences, and official documents to support his conclusions. I appreciated the inclusion of the many maps, photos, and endnotes. We get a “behind the scenes” view of the interpersonal conflicts and military politics among commanders, but it is not just a view from the top. It is also sprinkled with stories of individual soldiers. Atkinson highlights both mistakes and triumphs. “Confusion and error, valor and misdeed marked this first night of green troops in combat.”

North Africa provided a training ground for the previously untested American troops. By the time they reached Tunis, the troops were battle-hardened and ready for the fierce battles to come. It is important to understand the North African campaign in order to get a full picture of the road to the ultimate victory in Europe. I plan to read the final two books in the trilogy. This is history at its finest. I highly recommend it.
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First let me say that this was a thoroughly interesting book and I enjoyed it to the last. I am not going to say more about the quality of the writing that has not already been said.

What I can say is that I learned quite a bit about the north African campaign that I simply did not know. When I have read books about WWII they have tended to be about the war in Europe or I have read biographies like Carlos d'Este's Patton which talks more about the person than it does the theater of war.

A good book and I look forward to reading the other two in the trilogy.