An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943

“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 show more 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. show less

The North African campaign is one that I've always been a bit vague about; there's been a lot of popular history written about Rommel and the Afrika Korps, but less about the invasion in 1942 by American and British forces.
Atkinson discusses, among other things, the way in which this campaign was as much about learning how to manage and fight a war for the Americans (on both an individual and institutional level) as anything else. Part of this process was the discarding of unworkable military doctrines (the Americans were well behind the power curve when it came to understanding armored warfare--without the excuse the French and British had in 1939 that the Germans were unveiling a whole new system) and inadequate commanders. Both show more American and British generals come and go, some passing on to greater things, and others being left by the wayside as they failed to live up to the requirements of the job. Failures like Frendendall and Anderson pass by, along with survivors like Bradley, Patton, Alexander and Montgomery. However, Atkinson manages not to succumb to the glorious reputations of the latter, and is able to see and point out how much of the former's failures were made possible by shortcomings of their commanders as well as their own.
Much of Atkinson's writing is very direct and matter-of-fact; however, there are some lovely passages where he goes all Bruce-Catton-and-Shelby-Foote. Here's one, from the section "Gathering the Ships", describing the departure of the invasion convoy from Hampton Roads:
"The dawn was bright and blowing. Angels perched unseen on the shrouds and crosstrees. Young men, fated to survive and become old men dying abed half a century hence, would forever remember this hour, when an army at dawn made for the open sea in a cause none could yet comprehend. Ashore, as the great fleet glided past, dreams of them stepped, like men alive, into the rooms where their loved ones lay sleeping." show less

“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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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.) show less

I was introduced to this book through my Pulitzer Prize reading group. It was very well researched as it covered the United States' fighting in North Africa during World War II. I have been fascinated by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines since I was a kid. I always knew I would enlist when I turned 18. It was a difficult decision to decide on which branch but I settled on the Army in 1997. I served two years and learned that, at least in the areas that I was trained and worked, which was supply logistics, no matter what I was always a lean green killing machine first. It appeared to me that the Army was like a game of Telephone gone awry. Each level gets their orders from above and by the time it gets to the bottom, there is show more disarray. This book essentially told the same story. It sounded to me like some commanders had a cohesive plan but many did not. I've lost quite a few friends/fellow soldiers to recent wars and I wish there was a solid strategy behind their deaths. As I listened to all of the book's battles on audiobook, I was saddened that it felt like we sent men in without a solid plan for returning. I wish we could learn from our mistakes and not place men in positions of power who gleam glory by massive death tolls rather than strategy. show less

This is top-of-the-line military history. I'm very much looking forward to reading the next two volumes. I was very impressed with the first two (so far) of the three volumes of Ian Toll's history of World War II in the Pacific, and this is arguably even better, which is a high bar indeed. The author's willingness to detail both the good and the bad of "war and battle management" and the idiosyncrasies of the commanders at multiple levels was especially welcome. This volume emphasizes how poorly the Allies approached the first major part of the war against Hitler and Mussolini, but the author also explains well how the reader could expect those shortcomings to eventually serve to educate and improve upon what would follow.

Absolutely fabulous history of the Allies operations in North Africa in 1942-43. It portrays the difficulties/animosities/distrust between the Allies, along with the successes of those countries’ militaries, while trying to wrest control of, and expel Germany and Italy from, North Africa.

There is a ton of interesting information here about the difficulties, and eventual successes, the Allies had in establishing cohesive action by the different Departments (Army, Navy, Air Force) – that is, trying to coordinate the different actions by the divisions to have the most effective actions against the German and Italian militaries. It is clear that the Allies suffered both unnecessary loss of life, and overall defeats, on the battlefield show more precisely because actions taken were often unique to each military department, and sometimes, to each of the Allies.

There is also a huge amount of personal information about the officers of each military and how they interacted. A somewhat longer read but written well and rewarding overall. I look forward to the next volume in the trilogy by Rick Atkinson. show less