Closing the Ring

This volume of Churchill’s history of WWII covers the lead-up to D-Day, focusing much more on the complicated negotiations among the Allies, along with attempts to get Turkey and some chunk of the Italian government on their side, than on the battle against Hitler directly. While it’s hard to read due to the sheer volume of memos Churchill reproduces, what the book does give is a sense of just how immense the war was, and how many things Churchill had to know, balance, and compromise on every day. He was a control freak, but he somehow had the capacity to keep track of this sprawling, confusing mess and keep Britain basically on track. Last Lion, indeed.

The fifth volume of Churchill's six volume WWII memiors is a thrilling read, for the most part. Clear, concise, with a driving narrative thread. Sometimes moving. Sometimes humorous and usually revealing.

A few quibbles: Churchill does protest too much that he was not opposed to a cross channel invasion earlier in the war. Personally, I think the Galippoli disaster that he authored haunted him in his approach to the cross channel invasion of France, rightly or wrongly. Coverage of the Pacific theater is minimal simply because this was a secondary concern for the British and they had few forces engaged there. Churchill also tries very hard to justify the slogging stalemate in Italy and the strategic/tactical mistakes that seemed to show more plauge it from the start. Coverage of the Eastern front is almost exclusively political, but these are memiors by a war Prime Minister. De Gaulle comes off as a selfish brat and Churchill himself reminds me a lot of that other kid-in-a-candy-store sort of approach, Theodore Roosevelt. A very good read and deservedly one of the best memiors of the 20th century and maybe all time. show less

Now the Allies start grinding their way forward. My previous view of Sicily, Italy, and Monty was through the movie Patton, so interesting to get a view which barely mentions the latter. Perhaps most fascinating in all of these volumes have been the appendices featuring complete telegrams and minutes and seeing how much of a micromanager Churchill was, concerning himself in everything from grand political strategy to the production of playing card decks and everything in between.

The fifth entry in Churchill's magnificent journey through WWII, Churchill describes the period of time between the summer of 1943 to June of 1944 when the tide had turn and defeat of the Axis powers was inevitable - the means were the only uncertain thing.

The correspondence between leaders is the fascinating thing to watch here, as Stalin again and again hammers home the need for a second front while Churchill and FDR stutter and stammer for more time, more resources. It's apparent by this time that Stalin's forces were doing the heavy lifting, and it's likely, though not mentioned, the other allies were more than willing to see the Soviets and Germans hammer each other for awhile.

The book goes into much detail regarding preparations show more for the Normandy invasion, and how the limiting factor of landing craft availability was a constraining resource.

By the D-day invasion it had become apparent that the Soviet Union and the quickly mobilizing US forces were the dominant players on the Allies side, though Churchill is quick to mention every role that Great Britain plays.

A terrific addition to the series, well worth reading. show less

The End in Africa, The Invasion of Italy, and D-Day. WSC is still a master stylist and it's a readable account. The other Allied Rulers suffer the drawback of not having their cases presented so immediately. It suffers from not being able to discuss Ultra, but perhaps the Russians still did not know of it in 1952.

Perhaps not the most rivetting volume of the sequence, this takes us through the hard slog towards a victory that seemed increasingly likely once the tide had turned at Alamein and Stalingrad.

It is a story of long and often frustrating meetings with Roosevelt and (particularly frustrating) with Stalin, as they wrangled through the pros and cons of strategy. Four whole chapters are, deservedly, devoted to the Tehran conference (where Stalin blithely suggested the execution of 50 thousand leading Germans - he was serious, but pretended it a joke when confronted with Churchill's reaction.)

You have to read between the lines to work out what a disaster was the Italian campaign that Churchill pushed for when his allies wanted to concentrate show more on "Overlord". The object was meant to be to capture airfields north of Rome, from which Germany could be bombed in preparation for the Normandy landings. In the event, at the cost of many lives at Cassino and elsewhere Rome was entered precisely one day before the invasion of France.

A good read. Not very exciting, but I do not suppose running the war was, really. show less

This is a book of slow, hard success in war, gained by bitter struggle and great hardship. The volume, in places, is a slow struggle. I think that is mostly due to the chapters on the Teheran Conference. While of great importance to the war effort and history, they were slow and dull to me. The rest of the book, with a few exceptions, is a story of the Allied successes. A lot of it, however, is in the form of memos in which Churchill cajoles, entreats, orders and argues with a large assortment of premieres, politicians, presidents and generals to do things his way.

In all the volumes of this series two items are conspicuous by their absence. One of these is the absence of Enigma, the coding machine of the Germans, the capture of which show more allowed the Allies to read German orders. This gave the Allies a great advantage in strategy and tactics. At the time theses books were written I do not think Enigma had been announced to the public so this is understandable. What is less understandable was the lack of mention of General Dowding. General Dowding was the man who organized, equipped and led the RAF in the Battle of Britain. Immediately after the battle was won, General Dowding was dismissed. Churchill makes no mention of why this was done. Except in this case, when a general officer or important politician vanished from the scene a reason of some type was given by Churchill. To me it is a curious omission.

This is an important book in an important series and should be read by anyone interested in the history of World War II. I recommend it highly. show less