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The Day of Battle
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Read The Day of Battle
Liberation Trilogy: Book 2

The Day of Battle (2007) (edit title/settings)

The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944

by Rick Atkinson (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

In the second volume of his epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy  In An Army at Dawn —winner of the Pulitzer Prize—Rick Atkinson provided a dramatic and authoritative... read more

Summary edit see section history

Here we have the full panoply of bloody modern warfare, usually not glorious and often with much pathos. We are with the Allied troops as they land in Sicily, most by amphibious, some by air drop. The fighting is detailed in all its minutiae with the main command characters profiled and... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

Here we have the full panoply of bloody modern warfare, usually not glorious and often with much pathos. We are with the Allied troops as they land in Sicily, most by amphibious, some by air drop. The fighting is detailed in all its minutiae with the main command characters profiled and followed in their decisions and interpersonal communications. The author makes all this very interesting and places the characters within the socio-politico spheres of the time. From Sicily the next location the Allies strike toward is mainland Italy. The Brits move in one direction and the Americans another. Again command figures take center stage, lead among them General Mark Clark. What a fellow. This part of the book becomes enthralling. The slugfest and amount of human and physical destruction wrought by these two forces is unbelievable. All culminating in the seizure of Rome on June 5, 1944. This is one day before the Normandy landings and the final chapter in the destruction of the Third Reich. Hence the Italian campaign becomes postscript to the events leading up to Germany's surrender on May 8, 1945. We have lived with these men through the author's words and we know the sacrifices that they have made. This important part of the European theater of war during World War II should never be forgotten and must always be honored.

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “The Russians are perfectly friendly. They aren't trying to gobble up all the rest of Europe or the world.”
    Franklin D. Roosevelt
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • A single crude acronym that captured the soldier's lowered expectations—SNAFU, for 'situation normal, all fucked up'—had expanded into a vocabulary of GI cynicism: SUSFU (situation unchanged, still fucked up); SAFU (self-adjusting fuck-up); TARFU (things are really fucked up); FUMTU (fucked up more than usual); JANFU (joint Army-Navy fuck-up); JAAFU (joint Anglo-American fuck-up); FUAFUP (fucked up and fucked up proper); and FUBAR (fucked up beyond all recognition).
    Highlighted by 16 Kindle customers
  • 'A calculated risk is a known risk for the sake of a real gain. A risk for the sake of a risk is a fool's choice.'
    Highlighted by 15 Kindle customers
  • One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation.
    Highlighted by 14 Kindle customers
  • toward a world at peace: that war is corrupting, that it corrodes the soul and tarnishes the spirit, that even the excellent and the superior can be defiled, and that no heart would remain unstained.
    Highlighted by 12 Kindle customers
  • an edict requiring a 10 percent reduction in the cloth used for women's bathing suits led to the bikini.
    Highlighted by 12 Kindle customers
  • 'The Arab soldier is interested in just three things: women, horses, and guns,' a French officer told an American colonel, who replied, 'The American soldier is the same, except that he doesn't care anything about horses and guns.'
    Highlighted by 9 Kindle customers
  • Pride and solipsism had got the best of a good soldier. Perhaps Livy's observation of the Punic Wars still obtained: that the 'power to command and readiness to obey are rare associates.'
    Highlighted by 9 Kindle customers
  • little people,' Revelle told her, 'must solve these catastrophes by mutual slaughter, and force the world back to reason.'
    Highlighted by 7 Kindle customers
  • not bear the shame of being less than the man beside us,' John Muirhead wrote. 'We fought because he fought; we died because he died.'
    Highlighted by 7 Kindle customers
  • As one artillery major observed, 'We've got them just where they want us.'
    Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers
Show all 11 quotes from this book

First Sentence edit see section history

SHE could be heard long before she was seen on that foggy Tuesday morning, May 11, 1943.

Table of Contents edit see section history

LIST OF MAPS
MAP LEGEND
ALLIED CHAIN OF COMMAND

PROLOGUE

PART ONE

1. ACROSS THE MIDDLE SEA

Forcing the World Back to Reason
Calypso's Island
"The Horses of the Sun"
Death or Glory

2. THE BURNING SHRE

Land of the Cyclops
The Loss of Irrecoverable Hours
"Tonight Wear White Pajamas"
"The Dark World Is Not Far from Us"

3. AN ISLAND REDOUBT

"Into Battle with Stout Hearts"
"How I Love Wars"
Snaring the Head Devil
Fevers of an Unknown Origin
A Great Grief
"In a Place Like This"

PART TWO

4. SALERNO

"Risks Must Be Calculated"
Plots, Cpounterplots, and Cross-plots
The Stillest Shoes the World Could Boast
The Moan of Lost Souls
A Portal Won

5. CORPSE OF THE SIREN

"I Give You Naples"
"Watch Where You Step and Have No Curiosity at All"
The Mountainous Hinterland
"The Entire World Was Burning"

6. WINTER

The Archangel Michael, Here and Everywhere
"A Tank Too Big for the Village Square"
A Gangster's Battle
Too Many Gone West

PART THREE

7. A RIVER AND A ROCK

Colonel Warden Makes a Plan
"Nothing Was Right Except the Courage"
The Show Must Go On

8. PERDITION

"Something's Happening"
Through the Looking Glass
Jerryland

9. THE MURDER SPACE

This World and the Next World at Strife
The Bitchhead
"Man Is Distinguished from the Beasts"


10. FOUR HORSEMEN

A Fairyland of SIlver and Gold
The Weight of Metal
Dragonflies in the Sun

11. A KETTLE OF GRIEF

Dead Country
"Put the Fear of God into Them"
"You Are All Brave. You are All Gentlemen"
"On the Eve of Great Things"

12. THE GREAT PRIZE

Shaking Stars from the Heavens
A Fifth Army Show
The Cuckoo's Song
Expulsion of the Barbarians

EPILOGUE

NOTES
SELECTED SOURCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 2 of 2 in Liberation Trilogy. (standard series)

Preceded by An Army at Dawn.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Rick Atkinson (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2007
ISBN: 0805062890
Page Count: 791

Classification edit see section history

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