Takedown: The 3rd Infantry Division's Twenty-One Day Assault on Baghdad [Hardcover]

Jim Lacey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 2007 | ISBN-10: 1591144582 | ISBN-13: 978-1591144588

Over time the impression has grown that the 2003 invasion of Iraq met with little resistance and that, with few exceptions, the Iraqi army simply melted away. As this book clearly shows, nothing could be further from the truth. In its drive to capture Baghdad, the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division was in nearly constant combat for twenty-one days. While Americans were watching Saddam's statue being torn down on TV, a brigade of the 3rd ID was on the verge of being overrun by Iraqi Republican Guard units trying to escape north. Told to hold two bridges in his sector, a brigade commander had to blow up one of them because he did not have the combat power to hold it. The company commander holding the other bridge was so hard pressed that he called on the artillery to fire their final protective fires a command made only when a unit is in mortal danger and one that had not been given since Vietnam. Every one of the division's armored vehicles was hit by rockets some taking more than a dozen hits and the fighting was so fierce at times that entire battalions ran out of ammunition. Nevertheless, when the fighting was finally over, the 3rd ID had destroyed two Iraqi Regular Army divisions and three divisions of the much vaunted Republican Guard.

Takedown tells the little-known story of what happened to the 3rd ID during its struggle to win Baghdad, a campaign that some call one of the most vicious in American military history. To offer this firsthand account, Jim Lacey, a former Time magazine reporter embedded with the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, draws on extensive interviews that he conducted with the American soldiers involved as well as access to personal papers and war memoirs. This story is also enriched through his extensive use of interview transcripts of senior Iraqi army officers along with their personal written recollections. From the Kuwaiti border to the streets of Baghdad, these dramatic eyewitness descriptions of what went on give readers an accurate look at the brutal engagements in which the division fought for its life.

In making use of such a wealth of primary source material, Lacey has succeeded in writing a fast paced narrative of the conflict, backed up by verifiable facts, that shows how modern wars are really fought.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Jim Lacey and Takedown represents a major and successful effort to fill in one of the major blank spots in our knowledge of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This is a superb examination of the combat operations of the 3rd Infantry Division, as it conducted one of the most spectacular operations in American military history in late March and early April 2003. Takedown is a brilliant account of modern combat and battle leadership." --Williamson Murray, author of The Past and Prologue: The Importance of History to the Military Profession"

"Perhaps the only fact beyond dispute about America's current engagement in Iraq is that the campaigns of March 2003 were executed with a brilliance seldom seen in the annals of war. Jim Lacey gives us an unforgettable account of those weeks as experienced by the officers and soldiers of the Third Infantry Division the very tip of the spear that pierced the heart of Saddam's regime. By turns harrowing and heroic, their story is one that we dare not forget as we struggle to come to terms with the unanticipated consequences of victory." --Fred Anderson, author of Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766"

"In a time of angst about the 'quagmire' in Iraq, it's refreshing to read an unvarnished history of April 2003, when U.S. troops stormed to Baghdad in an astonishing three weeks. Author Jim Lacey calls it 'one of the most remarkable military achievements in history.' Indeed it was." --The Wall Street Journal

About the Author

JIM LACEY is a retired U.S. Army infantry officer who works as a military analyst for the Institute for Defense Analyses. He is coauthor of The Iraqi Perspectives Report: Saddam's Senior Leadership on Operation Iraqi Freedom from the Official U.S. Joint Forces Command Report, published by the Naval Institute Press in 2006, and editor of the book Fresh from the Fight, a collection of essays on the war in Iraq.

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Lacey worked for Time magazine as an embedded journalist and was with the 101st Airborne Division during the march to Baghdad. He has been published in more than a dozen major magazines and has written numerous articles and editorials on international and military affairs in many of the nation's leading newspapers. He lives in northern Virginia.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press (March 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591144582
• ISBN-13: 978-1591144588
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #730,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent tactical overview of OIF I, July 15, 2007

By 

Kirk L. (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Takedown: The 3rd Infantry Division's Twenty-One Day Assault on Baghdad (Hardcover)

The only thing preventing me from giving Jim Lacey's Take Down a perfect 5-star rating is the frequency of small errors, typos and misidentifications of units and facts that eventually detract from what is a superb tactical account of the division's bold masterstroke to topple Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Although it sounds like a nitnoid criticsm of the book, and many of the errors aren't noticed unless you are an experienced army Soldier or were there, I wish more diligence had been paid by the author and editors in putting together the final product.

That said- this is the definitive tactical account at the division level of OIF I and the assault on Baghdad. There are several books that take the battalion and company view of the Marne Division's tremendous success in March and April, 2003 such as Jason Conroy's "Heavy Metal," and David Zucchino's "Thunder Run," and while both are outstanding, they provide a limited perspective of the company/battalion and battalion/brigade fight involving 1-64 AR and the 2nd "Spartan" Brigade under Col. David Perkins. Lacey's "Take Down" the first to focus on the 3rd ID and all three maneuver brigades (Raiders, Spartans, Sledgehammer) and their leaders and Soldiers as they made the march up from Kuwait.

The people of this book are a who's who of heroes and leaders. In addition to the commanding general and his brigade commanders, Lt. Col. Ernst "Rock" Marcone, who commanded 3-69 AR is a central character. Although I didn't know him personally, I arrived as a new lieutenant to the tank company in 3-37 AR he had left command of at Fort Riley several months before in the mid-90's. The Deathstalker tankers still spoke about him in reverent tones and told many stories of "ol' Captain Marcone," so I found myself fascinated with his personal accounting of the various battles his battalion fought in Iraq.

Then, there is Lt. Col. Jeffrey Sanderson- commander of 2-69 AR- Speed and Power! His men truly loved him, as I came to discover while serving with many of them as the 3rd brigade, 3rd ID deputy operations officer in OIF III in 2005. Guys like "Snake" and "Paul" and "Pancho" all talked about "Pappy Sanderson" like a father figure and how he always led from the front, and I deeply regretted that I had not the chance to serve under such a fine combat leader. You get that sense about him in this book, as some of the stories told to me by his subordinate officers came to life in important detail here.

You get all of the Marne Division's finest in this book, which is concise, to the point, and an extremely fast read. It also dispels the silly myth once and for all that capturing Baghdad was a simple task, and that the roads leading to that tremendous accomplishment were easy. Those men and women of the Marne Division fought and bled giving better than what they got one hundredfold. Individual stories of heroism such as Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith, Staff Sgt. Dillard Johnson of 3-7 CAV, the Hibner twins and Sgt. 1st Class Hector Camacho among others are part of the narrative.

There will undoubtedly be more books and movies told of this amazing operation, but this is an excellent starting point, and for anyone wanting to know the tactical details of how one mechanized division toppled an entire regime, this is the best account of it.

Again- content-wise I give it a 5/5, but the mistakes and misidentifications were enough to take it down just a bit.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb, February 27, 2007

By 

Great Santini (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Takedown: The 3rd Infantry Division's Twenty-One Day Assault on Baghdad (Hardcover)

An utterly fascinating account of the invasion of Iraq!!! I got an advanced copy of this book and finished it in a single day. I had already read a number of books about the invasion of Iraq and thought I had a clear understanding of what happened. I was wrong. Takedown was full of insights and told a story I had never heard before. What the 3rd Infantry Division accomplished was simply incredible and I am surprised that this has remained such an untold story for so long. If you have an interest in military history or current events, then this book is a must read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, June 19, 2007

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Books_R_Me (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Takedown: The 3rd Infantry Division's Twenty-One Day Assault on Baghdad (Hardcover)

I read this book in a single sitting. At critical moments in the battle the author really makes you feel as if you are watching events right over the shoulders of the troops doing the fighting. At the same time I was impressed at the scope of the book and loved reading the Iraqi side of the fight.