Customer Reviews

Countdown to Victory: The Final European Campaigns of World War II

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This is a well put together book but I didn't think it was as good as Max Hastings' "Armageddon" which covers the same topic.

It really only looks in detail at the end of the war in Western Europe and pretty much ignores the Eastern Front, which was where most of the really intense fighting took place - maybe it should have been titled "Countdown to Victory in the West."

There are some a number of fairly basic errors which if you know anything about the subject are irritating eg he repeats the old but discredited myth often quoted by bomber crew about the Germans using "scarecrow" shells which looked like exploding planes to frighten them (no, they really were exploding planes); plus Hitler was 53 in 1945, not 46.

So all in all, a good summary of the end of the war in the West but probably not the definitive book on the subject.

This is an interesting book which deals with the trials and tribulations of all soldiers as well as civilians. It deals primarily with the war in Western Europe from September 1944 through December 1944.

Among some errors mentioned in another review, there is one glaring error which stands out to me anyway. Specifically, Turner refers to a U.S.Army Division as the "Thirteenth" ( on page 274 ) but there was no Thirteenth division...it was the 30th Infantry Division known as Old Hickory. Turner correctly identifies the 117th Infantry Regiment of the 30th ID however.

I did enjoy this book and found that the civilian stories added an interesting dimension to the overall content.