The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe 1944-1945 - WWII History Book | Liberation Trilogy | Perfect for Military History Buffs & WWII Enthusiasts

I was a bit surprised when I went to post this review. There were already a number of reviews on Amazon about this book. Yet I had obtained an advance readers copy several weeks before the official release date of May 14 (my hardback copy was received that same day). I would like to state up front that I have read the whole book from cover to cover. It is an excellent book, with very few factual errors (in my opinion), most of which pertain to the discussion of the concluding phase of the Normandy campaign, e.g. the Mortain counteroffensive. For example, the 1st SS Panzer Division was not late because a shot down fighter bomber crashed on a tank in a defile. They got misoriented, in large part due to the hurried nature of the planning for the German counterattack on the morning of 7 August, and the fact they had to make a night road march in unfamiliar terrain. The 116th Panzer Division did NOT lag back when the attack kicked off, and as a matter of fact made the deepest penetration, with its Panther battalion (2/24 Panzer Regt) reaching Le Mesnil Adelee - where they were destroyed by a counterattack launched by the 119th Infantry Regiment (30th ID) and 3d Armored Division - not 2d Armored Division as Atkinson mentions. The commander of the 116th Panzer Division was relieved by the XLVII Panzer Corps commander because they did not get along personally, and because the German division commander (von Schwerin) was a brillant Terry Allen-like leader with exceptional tactical and leadership skills who built up tremendous espirit de corps within his unit while getting under the skin of his superiors.Other than that, I did not notice anything in the Normandy section. Nor did I notice anything else that jumped out in the remainder of the book. If I had to score his research, I would give him a 98% at a minimum. Those few errors, in my opinion, result from using dated (German accounts in the immediate post-war period)and not the latest academic scholarship using primary sources. That said, Atkinson's bibliography by itself (selected sources beginning on page 813) is well worth the price of this volume. The book is organized into four parts (each totaling approximately 160 pages), each with three chapters (about 40 - 50 pages apiece).Part One is entitled "Invasion" and consists of chapters entitled "Invasion," "Lodgment," and "Liberation." Atkinson is a superlative writer who can take a wealth of otherwise meaningless statistics and weave those numbers into meaningful prose. For example, the mind numbing detail involved in carrying out Operation Overlord is fittingly brought to life when Atkinson describes events that NEVER occurred in great detail, e.g. the Allied retaliatory chemical attacks in response to a German chemical or biological strike against the invading armada. The sheer scope of the allied endeavor is driven home when talking about such mundane topics as maps (pp. 23 - 24): "Armed guards from ten cartography depots escorted three thousand tons of maps for D-Day alone, the first of 210 million maps that would be distributed in Europe, most of them printed in five colors. Also into the holds (of ships) went 280,000 hydrographic charts; town plats for the likes of Cherbourg and St. Lo; many of the one million aerial photos of German defenses, snapped from reconnaissance planes flying at twenty-five feet and watercolors depicting the view that landing craft coxswains would have of their beaches...."PART TWO describes the Post-Cobra and Falaise gap events, e.g. Chapter 4 - Pursuit, Chapter 5 - Against the West Wall, and Chapter 6 - The Implicated Woods. The only complaint, and it is a minor one, is that Atkinson while writing Chapter 8 somehow overlooked a detailed article in World War Two magazine on the 9th Infantry Division's initial foray into the Hurtgen Woods in October 1944. The Germans reinforced their defenses in that sector because they thought they were facing "troops specially trained in forest warfare."PART THREE resumes the battles on the German frontier before ending with the Rundstedt offensive in the Ardennes with Chapter 7 "The Flutter of Wings," Chapter 8 - "A Winter Shadow," and Chapter 9 - "The Bulge." The fourth and final section details the post-Ardennes fighting as well as the Allied conferences in the last year of the war. The Yalta conference in particular is detailed very effectively. Atkinson is particularly effective in weaving small details into the larger narration (who otherwise would have known that one of the villas occupied by Allied representatives served previously at Rundstedt's headquarters?) I think that Rick Atkinson's work reflects a labor of love as he does not recount events and personalities dispassionately. It is clear that Rick appeared to be as frustrated with the French Army's behavior as Eisenhower following the Normandy invasion nor does the author have much sympathy for Montgomery's perennial "bad boy" behavior resulted from deep seated hubris. That said, this book focuses on the experiences of the American soldier and American armies. Our British and French allies are mentioned only when the narrative demands additional detail along those lines.As a professional historian, my own take on this story would have involved more discussion along the lines of "battalion X moved from Point B to Point C, sustaining 23 casualties in the process of killing of capturing XX German defenders...." Atkinson brings those events to life with a vivid literary brush that literally almost places the reader at the scene of the action. His research is for the most part impeccable, which translates into ACCURATE dramatic prose.I am genuinely thankful to the author for making these events accessible and interesting to so many more Americans than academic historians like myself. Mr. Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy represents the penultimate account of the US Army in the Mediterranean and European Theaters during the Second World War. With 29 maps and many photographs, it is well worth the price!ADDENDUM: Atkinson ends the book not with the final surrender in May 1945, but with a detailed description of the repatriation of American war dead from Europe and the gathering of other American war dead at newly created American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC)cemeteries. I think that this particular approach is a fitting and appropriate way to conclude an outstanding set of books.