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The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western…
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The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (The Liberation Trilogy) (original 2013; edition 2014)

by Rick Atkinson

Series: Liberation Trilogy (3)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1,4734812,291 (4.52)37
Tells the dramatic story of the titanic battle for Western Europe from D-Day to the thrust to the heart of the Third Reich. This book is the magnificent conclusion to Rick Atkinson's acclaimed Liberation Trilogy about the Allied triumph in Europe during World War II. It is the twentieth century's unrivaled epic: at a staggering price, the United States and its allies liberated Europe and vanquished Hitler. In the first two volumes of his bestselling Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson recounted how the American-led coalition fought through North Africa and Italy to the threshold of victory. Now he tells the most dramatic story of all -- the titanic battle for Western Europe. D-Day marked the commencement of the final campaign of the European war, and Atkinson's riveting account of that bold gamble sets the pace for the masterly narrative that follows. The brutal fight in Normandy, the liberation of Paris, the disaster that was Operation Market Garden, the horrific Battle of the Bulge, and finally the thrust to the heart of the Third Reich -- all these historic events and more come alive with a wealth of new material and a mesmerizing cast of characters. Atkinson tells the tale from the perspective of participants at every level, from presidents and generals to war-weary lieutenants and terrified teenage riflemen. When Germany at last surrenders, we understand anew both the devastating cost of this global conflagration and the enormous effort required to win the Allied victory. With the stirring final volume of this monumental trilogy, Atkinson's accomplishment is manifest. He has produced the definitive chronicle of the war that unshackled a continent and preserved freedom in the West. - Publisher.… (more)
Member:HarmlessTed
Title:The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (The Liberation Trilogy)
Authors:Rick Atkinson
Info:Picador (2014), Edition: Volume Three of The Liberation Trilogy, Paperback, 928 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:
Tags:military history, WW2

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The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944–1945 by Rick Atkinson (2013)

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Wow. I wish I could give it 10 stars. If you've read a lot of world war 2 history it will still amaze you. The entire trilogy is a must read but this one was special to me. Maybe because I was reading it on June 6th. A beautifully written and brilliantly researched book. ( )
  dhenn31 | Jan 24, 2024 |
As I sit in the warm, quiet comfort of my home, watching the falls leaves drift from the trees in my yard, I close the book on the third of Rick Atkinson's The Liberation Trilogy. Nothing, nothing can be so sad as war, certainly not WW2 where the skies rained so much steel upon mankind, and where ovens swallowed the slaughtered millions. So many of those soldiers in the Allied forces could not have had an inkling of what awaited them in defeated Germany. Those soldiers, those who lived and those who died, experienced more pain and fright and danger in a day than I will ever experience. For that I am grateful. I learned in this last volume how Allied soldiers sometimes misbehaved much in the way that Soviet soldiers misbehaved in their march west, or as French colonials misbehaved in conquered Italy. I learned how splintered the Allies were throughout the invasion of Europe. I also learned much more about the Canadian role in the conflagration than I knew in the past. Pray there isn't a next time. ( )
  MylesKesten | Jan 23, 2024 |
A swell history of the Allies in Western Europe. Part three of Atkinson's five star trilogy about the campaigns in North Africa/Italy/Western Europe. I have read a lot about this story (The longest day, Is paris burning?, A bridge too far, The last battle, etc.), but I think I appreciated this history more because of it. It must be a daunting task to write this complex story, after all, what do you include? But Atkinson has done a great, even swell, job. Most fascinating are the assorted weirdos who were in charge of things (Le Lattre, De Gaulle, Montgomery, Patton); it seems almost impossible that they could accomplish anything together. I also enjoyed the various parts of the story that I knew little or nothing about, the landing at Marseilles and campaign in central France, the problems in the Colmar pocket, accusations against the French in Stuttgart, the US fear that the Germans were massing a secret army in the Alps, Patton's attempt to use an armored battalion to try to rescue his son-in-law from a POW camp, a detailed account of the meeting at Yalta including the problem with bedbugs. Highly recommended - read all three.

By the way, nowhere in the book did I find the quote attributed to Paul Reynaud that "De Gaulle has the character of a pig, but he has character."
Also the author mistakenly uses the word "gutful" to mean brave two or three times. ( )
  markm2315 | Jul 1, 2023 |
“Twelve years and four months after it began, the Thousand-Year Reich had ended. Humanity would require decades, perhaps centuries, to parse the regime’s inhumanity, and to comprehend how a narcissistic beerhall demagogue had wrecked a nation, a continent, and nearly a world.”

The third book in the Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson covers the last year of World War II in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, parts of the Netherlands, and Germany. It covers the Allied invasion at Normany, liberation of Paris, Operation Market Garden, Battle of the Bulge, Yalta Conference, liberation of the death camps, and the final signing of the surrender document. It covers everything from the leaders’ strategic decisions (and disagreements) to the personal thoughts of the soldier on the battlefield, as written in letters to loved ones at home. Hitler’s decisions and those of his field marshals are not neglected, though not covered in as much detail.

Rick Atkinson is a gifted writer who knows how to turn a phrase:

• On the Normandy Invasion – Omaha Beach:
“They remembered the shapeless dead, sprawled on the strand like smears of divine clay, or as flotsam on the making tide, weltering, with their life belts still cinched. All this they would remember, from the beaten zone called Omaha.”

• On the Battle of the Bulge:
“To be sure, there were clues, omens, auguries. Just as surely, they were missed, ignored, explained away. For decades after the death struggle called the Battle of the Bulge, generals, scholars, and foot soldiers alike would ponder the worst U.S. intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor and the deadliest of the war. Only from the high ground of history could perfect clarity obtain, and even then the simplest, truest answer remained the least satisfying: mistakes were made and many men died.”

• On Yalta and the damage to Russia:
“Soon a weaving convoy of sedans and buses followed the unpaved road to Yalta, eighty miles and five hours away. No photograph or Movietone footage could have more vividly conveyed to the Western Allies the intensity of the war being waged by their eastern comrades: mile upon mile of gutted buildings, barns, crofts, trains, tanks, trucks. Peasant women in shawls and knee boots waved from barren fields and from orchards reduced to flinders. Except for a few sheep, no livestock could be seen, or farm machinery, or men for that matter.”

This book is non-fiction at its best. Atkinson’s researched sources and notes cover 235 pages of content in the appendix. Numerous helpful maps are included. It will appeal to anyone seeking to fathom not only the sweeping advances of the Allied forces, but also the human components of war. The many factors are examined, such as psychological factors, decision-making with incomplete information, competing priorities, balancing the viewpoints of many countries’ leaders, and the immense physical and ethical damage to both soldiers and civilians. All these are conveyed in vivid detail. Anyone who wants to know what truly happened in WWII should read this trilogy.
( )
  Castlelass | Oct 30, 2022 |
Atkinson gerir vel í frásögn sinni af deilunum á milli hershöfðingja Breta, Bandaríkjamanna og Frakka þegar Bandamenn réðust inn í Frakkland og sóttu þaðan til Þýskalands. Hershöfðingjarnir höguðu sér eins og prímadonnur, áttu í eilífum deilum og sumum virtist reyndar vera meira umhugað um mögulega frægð sína eftir stríðið heldur en að hjálpast að við að sigra óvininn.
Það sem takmarkar hins vegar þessa frásögn Atkinsons að mínu mati er að hann skautar yfir suma mikilvæga atburði en beinir athygli sinni meira að einstaka bardögum sem fyrir vikið fá ákaflega mikið vægi í sókn Bandamanna á meðan aðrir slíkir verða veigaminni. Sagan verður líka að sögu hershöfðingja Bandamanna en lítið er fjallað um bæði óbreytta hermenn er börðust sárþjáðir, flugmennina og ekki síst andstæðinga Bandamanna. En bókin varpar sem fyrr segir góðu ljósi á deilur herstjórnendanna. ( )
  SkuliSael | Apr 28, 2022 |
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Epigraph
But pardon, gentles all, The flat unraised spirits that hath dared On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth So great an object. Can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? - Shakespeare, Henry V, Prologue
Dedication
To those who knew neither thee nor me, yet suffered for us anyway
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The singing stopped as the Normandy coast drew near.
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Tells the dramatic story of the titanic battle for Western Europe from D-Day to the thrust to the heart of the Third Reich. This book is the magnificent conclusion to Rick Atkinson's acclaimed Liberation Trilogy about the Allied triumph in Europe during World War II. It is the twentieth century's unrivaled epic: at a staggering price, the United States and its allies liberated Europe and vanquished Hitler. In the first two volumes of his bestselling Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson recounted how the American-led coalition fought through North Africa and Italy to the threshold of victory. Now he tells the most dramatic story of all -- the titanic battle for Western Europe. D-Day marked the commencement of the final campaign of the European war, and Atkinson's riveting account of that bold gamble sets the pace for the masterly narrative that follows. The brutal fight in Normandy, the liberation of Paris, the disaster that was Operation Market Garden, the horrific Battle of the Bulge, and finally the thrust to the heart of the Third Reich -- all these historic events and more come alive with a wealth of new material and a mesmerizing cast of characters. Atkinson tells the tale from the perspective of participants at every level, from presidents and generals to war-weary lieutenants and terrified teenage riflemen. When Germany at last surrenders, we understand anew both the devastating cost of this global conflagration and the enormous effort required to win the Allied victory. With the stirring final volume of this monumental trilogy, Atkinson's accomplishment is manifest. He has produced the definitive chronicle of the war that unshackled a continent and preserved freedom in the West. - Publisher.

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