The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (Liberation Trilogy) [Paperback]

Rick Atkinson (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 16, 2008 | Series: Liberation Trilogy (Book 2)

"Majestic... Atkinson’s achievement is to marry prodigious research with a superbly organized narrative and then to overlay the whole with writing as powerful and elegant as any great narrative of war.” —The Wall Street Journal

In An Army at Dawn—winner of the Pulitzer Prize—Rick Atkinson provided an authoritative history of the Allied triumph in North Africa during World War II. Now, in The Day of Battle, he follows the strengthening American and British armies as they invade Sicily in July 1943 and then, mile by bloody mile, fight their way north toward Rome.

The decision to invade the so-called soft underbelly of Europe was controversial, but once under way, the commitment to liberate Italy from the Nazis never wavered. The battles at Salerno, Anzio, the Rapido River, and Monte Cassino were particularly lethal, yet as the months passed, the Allied forces continued to drive the Germans up the Italian peninsula. And with the liberation of Rome in June 1944, ultimate victory at last began to seem inevitable.

Drawing on a wide array of primary source material, written with great drama and flair, The Day of Battle is a masterly account of one of history’s most compelling military campaigns.

Product Details

• Paperback: 848 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; Reprint edition (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080508861X
• ISBN-13: 978-0805088618
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (208 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > History > Europe > Italy
  • #10 in Books > History > Military > World War II

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best of the Month, November 2007: Topping a Pulitzer Prize-winning effort is tough; finding originality in a World War II narrative is even tougher. Yet Rick Atkinson accomplishes both with The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944. His previous work, An Army at Dawn, won the 2003 Pulitzer in history, but Atkinson has managed to set the bar even higher with his second installment in "The Liberation Trilogy." He descends upon each battlefield with rich historical perspective, tactical analysis, and chilling frontline observations. Cocksure Hollywood bravado is sparse, as Atkinson depicts soldiers fighting for honor, not glory. "We did it because we could not bear the shame of being less than the man beside us," explains one soldier's diary. "We fought because he fought; we died because he died." The result is an incredible portrayal of the courage, sorrow, and determination that came to define our greatest generation. --Dave Callanan --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Atkinson surpasses his Pulitzer-winning An Army at Dawn in this empathetic, perceptive analysis of the second stage in the U.S. Army's grassroots development from well-intentioned amateurs to the most formidable fighting force of World War II. The battles in Sicily and Italy developed the combat effectiveness and the emotional hardness of a U.S. Army increasingly constrained to bear the brunt of the Western allies' war effort, he argues. Demanding terrain, harsh climate and a formidable opponent confirmed the lesson of North Africa: the only way home was through the Germans: kill or be killed. Atkinson is pitilessly accurate demonstrating the errors and misjudgments of senior officers, Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander, Gen. Mark Clark and their subordinates commanding corps and divisions. The price was paid in blood by the men at the sharp end: British and French, Indians and North Africans—above all, Americans. All that remained of the crew of one burned-out tank were the fillings of their teeth, for one example. The Mediterranean campaign is frequently dismissed by soldiers and scholars as a distraction from the essential objective of invading northern Europe. Atkinson makes a convincing case that it played a decisive role in breaking German power, forcing the Wehrmacht onto a defensive it could never abandon. (Oct. 2)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 848 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; Reprint edition (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080508861X
• ISBN-13: 978-0805088618
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (208 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > History > Europe > Italy
  • #10 in Books > History > Military > World War II

More About the Author

Rick Atkinson is the bestselling author of six works of narrative military history, including The Guns at Last Light, The Day of Battle, An Army at Dawn, The Long Gray Line, In the Company of Soldiers, and Crusade. He also was the lead essayist in Where Valor Rests: Arlington National Cemetery, published by National Geographic. He was a reporter, foreign correspondent, war correspondent, and senior editor at The Washington Post for more than twenty years. His many awards include Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and history, the George Polk Award, and the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. He lives in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.liberationtrilogy.com.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#80 Overall (See top 100 authors)

#1 in Books > History

#2 in Kindle eBooks > History

#76 in Books

#1 in Books > History

#2 in Kindle eBooks > History

#76 in Books

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

239 of 256 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This Is Military History At Its Best! October 2, 2007

By Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

When it comes to writing military history, Rick Atkinson's narratives, in my view, are as good as it gets. I have an entire bookcase devoted to books about World War II and I would argue that very few, if any of them, meet the standard set now by Atkinson as far as depth of research, a flair for the truly visual and personal, and where an easy and readable prose-style is of concern. So I would not hesitate to nominate Atkinson as the best living author of books about World War II, if not of history in general. This current effort is the second volume of a proposed three-volume set of works about that devastating war. The first book in the series was "An Army at Dawn" -- a winner of the Pulitzer Prize -- which dealt with the North African campaign. Now, in "The Day of Battle," Atkinson takes on the campaign in Sicily and Italy in 1943 and 1944. And does he ever!

I have a large collection of videos dealing with WWII and, of course, one can get "up front and close" to the action when watching them. The images, combined with the narration and the accompanying music in the background, provide the viewer with a true "you are there" experience. I felt almost the same experience while reading this book. Atkinson's ability to linguistically describe a situation so that the reader feels he or she is right there within the phenomenal frame of a battle is awesome. And I don't use the word "awesome" very often. But in this case it is genuinely applicable. I could actually visualize all the action as it was occurring; such is an excellent writer's ability to translate words into mental pictures.

There is one other thing I found absolutely compelling about this book.... Over the past few years, I have been studying (revisiting again for the umpteenth time, but more in-depth) the history of ancient Greece and Rome. Sicily and Italy, of course, played a significant role in the history of that era. One of the things that Atkinson does in "The Day of Battle" is correlate the geography of the exploits during the Sicilian and Italian military campaigns to activities that occurred and places that were important during the period when the Greeks and the Romans were active there.

For instance, in the first chapter in a section titled "Calypso's Island," he relates the following information: "Over the millennia, a great deal had happened on the tiny island [Malta] the Allies now code-named FINANCE. St. Paul had been shipwrecked on the north coast of Malta in A.D. 60 while..."; in the second chapter we read: "Few Sicilian towns claimed greater antiquity than Gela, where the center of the American assault was to fall. Founded on a limestone hillock by Greek colonists from Rhodes and Crete in 688 B.C. ..."; and in the tenth chapter we read: "Not far from here, in 217 B.C., Hannibal had found himself hemmed in by the mountains and Roman troops."

And the above are just three of the numerous references that Atkinson gives us as a classical background to what is going on during the 20th-century conflict. I love it, of course, because it makes the narrative so much more meaningful. One can say, "Well, men were there a couple of thousands years ago, basically doing the same thing and in the same places where the action was occurring in 1943-44." This goes a long way toward placing the whole narrative within a sweeping historical context.

And who can resist being impressed when, on page 573, Atkinson relates to us, when describing the entry into Rome of the American commander, General Mark Clark, that "In classical Rome, a triumphant general returning from his latest conquest made for the Capitoline, ... His face painted with vermilion, his head crowned with laurel ..." and so on; unfortunately this paragraph is too long to be quoted here, but it should be noted that Clark was not the first military commander to enter Rome triumphantly, although in this case with less pizzazz than did the ancient Roman generals.

I really think what separates Atkinson from other military historians I have read is the way in which he puts a "human face" on the whole subject. He provides us with the thoughts and feelings of the individual soldiers on both sides in the heat of the battles. He quotes from letters sent home to loved ones from both the men on the front line as well as from the officers in charge. He informs us intimately of the sufferings endured, the human toll incurred, the grand strategies and tactics planned, the successes achieved and, of course, of the fatuity displayed and the foibles exposed. No battle plan is ever perfectly executed and Atkinson does not shrink from critically evaluating those that took place in Sicily and Italy during World War II.

Now, I do not want to give the impression that "The Day of Battle" ignores the "big" events and personalities of the Italian theater during this conflict and is nothing more than a somewhat "soap-opera" presentation or a "made-for-TV tear-jerker." Atkinson writes serious military history. The Allied and Axis commanders, the presidents and prime ministers, the major military conflicts, the politics involved, and so forth -- all the things that one would expect to be covered in any scholarly work in military history -- are discussed and analyzed. What I am saying is that the author goes beyond the usual, to include the "bricks and mortar" of the wartime experience as well as the grand issues and characters involved. It is truly comprehensive in its scope. It is military history at its best.

Furthermore, the book is more than generous with its aids and references. There are twenty maps, including a two-page spread of the entire Mediterranean and European theaters on the endpapers, two 16-page sections of relevant photographs, 140 pages of reference notes, a selected bibliography that runs to thirty pages, and an extensive topical index to top it all off. What more could a World War II history buff ask for? Well, to be honest, one thing right now. And that is the third volume of Atkinson's "Liberation Trilogy" which will cover the final struggle for Western Europe, from the dawn of the Normandy invasion to the final victory in Berlin. I definitely look forward to reading it. Read more ›

69 of 73 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Work -- A Masterpiece October 9, 2007

By A. Courie

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Rick Atkinson's "The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944" is a masterpiece of military history that should be read by anyone with any interest in World War II or American military history. Following on the heels of his Pulitzer Prize-winning "An Army at Dawn," this is the second work in Atkinson's "Liberation Trilogy" and deserving of yet another Pulitzer Prize. This book is awash in details about the difficult - and often forgotten - fighting in the Mediterranean Theater, but it also clearly and effectively describes the bigger picture of the war in Sicily and Italy.

Two things will immediately strike the reader about this book: the detail with which Atkinson describes the fighting, and the dazzling prose that he uses to tell this story. Atkinson describes the personalities and details of the main characters in the story - the leaders, from Eisenhower to Kesselring to Patton to Mark Clark to - and also gives telling glimpses of the personal lives of the "grunts" who did the fighting on the ground. His emphasis on detail knows no bounds, as he describes Churchill's meals, the furnishings in Mark Clark's office, and the "Anzio Ritz" - the underground cinema at the Anzio beachhead that showed movies to the soldier's at the world's largest self-sufficient POW camp.

For many authors, these details would detract from the story, but through Atkinson's incredible writing, these details instead add life, character, and flavor to this story. He captures the frustrations and difficulties of preparing and leading these forces, such as when he says that "for reasons known only at echelons above reason" a typical convoy required more than six thousand pages of names....

My only complaint or criticism is that, in his effort to weave a seamless narrative, some of the militarily-significant details - the exact unit's designation, the exact date and time, the number of casualties - are omitted. That prevents this book from being a definitive source on the fighting in Sicily and Italy and means that anyone trying to do research on these campaigns needs to look elsewhere.

But despite that extremely minor criticism, this book stands head and shoulders above most other military histories. I've waited for this book for over three years, since reading "An Army at Dawn," and it was well worth the wait. I am already anxiously awaiting Rick Atkinson's concluding work in the "Liberation Trilogy." Read more ›

54 of 60 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A great volume 2 to a major work on the US Army in the ETO October 2, 2007

By Julian Wan

Format:Hardcover

Quick summary: a major history of the US Army's campaign to capture Sicily and mainland Italy during WWII. It covers the years 1943 - 1944 and reveals the maturing development of the US Army from a raw green force in North Africa to a more confident professional army capable of actions involving large scale operations.

With the passage of time, the release of more documents (>50 years since the end of WWII) and the longer arc of history, it is now possible to write more objective and critical history of the US side of the ETO. The first work, Army at the Dawn, revealed how badly prepared the US Army was at the outbreak of WWII and how green they were when they landed in North Africa. In hindsight Operation Torch was necessary in order to help sort out what tactics and weapons worked, which generals and officers were up to the modern shooting war, and what was the character of the American Army. Though West Point supplied a professional officer cadre, every American Army has essentially been an amateur one - from the Revolutionary War, Civil War, Spanish American War, and WWI. Large numbers of keen volunteers which needed several years or campaigns to become a serious fighting army. The Second World War proved no different. Atkinson continues his narrative of the evolution of the American Army with a detailed discussion of the Sicilian and Italian campaigns - the flaws and successes, the personalities, and lesser known but important figures.

This work should interest all readers who have an interest in military history in general, and US military history in particular.