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The Day of Battle
THE SECOND WORLD WAR
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INTRODUCTION - THE DAY OF BATTLE
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Rick Atkinson
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Rick AtkinsonSynopsis:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
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.
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REVIEWS FOR THE DAY OF BATTLE
“The Liberation Trilogy . . . is shaping up as a triumph of narrative history, elegantly written, thick with unforgettable description and rooted in the sights and sounds of battle. [Atkinson] excels at describing the furor of battle, and the Italian campaign provides him with abundant raw material. Mr. Atkinson, a longtime correspondent and editor for The Washington Post, conveys all of this with sharp-edged immediacy and a keen eye for the monstrous and the absurd.”
—The New York Times
“The majestic sequel to his Pulitzer Prize-winning An Army at Dawn . . . Atkinson’s achievement is to marry prodigious research with a superbly organized narrative and then to overlay the whole with writing as powerful and elegant as any great narrative of war.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Monumental . . . With this book, Rick Atkinson cements his place among America’s great popular historians, in the tradition of Bruce Catton and Stephen Ambrose.”
—The Washington Post
“. . . it is his ability to ferret out astonishing amounts of detail and marshal it into a highly readable whole that gives Atkinson the edge over most writers in this field. 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.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“[A] fascinating account of the war in Sicily and Italy.”
—USA Today
“Gripping . . . [Atkinson] combines an impressive depth of research with a knack for taut, compelling narrative.”
—Star Tribune (Minneapolis-St. Paul)
“Splendid . . . the infantrymen who did the fighting will grab at readers’ hearts.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“With The Day of Battle, Atkinson again proves himself to stand among the ranks of our most talented popular historians . . . required reading for anyone with an interest in the battles of World War II.”
—Austin American-Statesman
“A seamless, stunning narrative that is the equal of An Army at Dawn. . . . Atkinson’s success lies in his ability to render bare war’s wretched realities in astounding prose.”
—Contra Costa Times
“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.”
—Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
“Atkinson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, has written a comprehensive account of the campaign, which is the second volume of a planned trilogy covering the Allied liberation of Europe. As he illustrates with masterful use of primary sources, British and American war planners were deeply divided over the necessity of the campaign. Once launched, Allied attacks were frequently improvised and poorly coordinated. Still, progress was made, ending with the liberation of Rome in June 1944. 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
“The second volume of this former Washington Post editor’s “Liberation” trilogy, which began with the Pulitzer Prize-winning An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, this is probably the most eagerly awaited World War II book of the year. Atkinson’s clear prose, perceptive analysis, and grasp of the personalities and nuances of the campaigns make his book an essential purchase.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Literate, lucid, fast-paced history—an excellent survey of the Mediterranean campaign.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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More than ten years ago, I started a project, which I dubbed the Liberation Trilogy, with the intent of telling the story of the American military’s role in the liberation of Europe during World War II. With the publication of volume two, The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944, I’m now two-thirds of the way toward that goal. This new book picks up where the first volume, An Army at Dawn, left off, telling the epic tale of the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, and carrying us into the campaign for Italy—to Salerno, Anzio, Cassino, the Rapido River—through the fall of Rome on June 4, 1944, two days before the Normandy landings.
From the beginning of this enterprise, my presumption has been that no twenty-first-century reader can understand the ultimate Allied victory in Europe, in May 1945, without understanding what happened in the years before Normandy. Those victorious armies, those soldiers and commanders who filled the ranks, had a history, a bloody history, of sorrow and error and valor. It started in North Africa, and now their story continues through Sicily and up the boot of Italy.
The Mediterranean campaigns have long been overshadowed in the American consciousness by Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and the ultimate fall of the Third Reich. Yet three-quarters of a million American soldiers served in Italy; 23,000 of them were killed there. Total Allied casualties in the Italian campaign exceeded 300,000. Walt Whitman once complained that “the real war will never get in the books.” In a similar vein, one of the best journalists working in Italy in 1943-1944, Martha Gellhorn, wrote, “War was always worse than I knew how to say.” Part of my task in The Day of Battle, whether in writing about the grandest of grand strategy or about life for Joe and Willie in a foxhole, is to find the words that Gellhorn couldn’t, to put the lie to Walt Whitman, and to ensure that the real war does get in the books.
—Rick Atkinson
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Manuscripts and key documents consulted during the research for The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 but not cited in the book’s list of selected sources
http://liberationtrilogy.com/suppleme...
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Rick Atkinson was interviewed about his book, The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944, published by Henry Holt and Company. The book is Volume Two of the Liberation Trilogy about World War II.
CSPAN Interview - http://www.c-span.org/video/?198441-1...
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Rick Atkinson talked about the invasion of Sicily and mainland Italy from 1943-1944 by the American military. He focused on the personal history of the soldiers and the challenges and triumphs of narrative non-fiction history writing.
Rick Atkinson is the author of The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944, published by Henry Holt and Company. The book is volume two of the Liberation Trilogy about the American Army’s role in World War II.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?281368-1...
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (other topics)The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Rick Atkinson (other topics)Rick Atkinson (other topics)
