BEATING THEIR FIRST STRING. The alliance between Britain and the United States to win World War II was successful although subject to stresses. The decision where to hit the Germans first provided some of the greatest stress, with the U.S. disposed to smash directly into Europe and the British preferring to secure the Mediterranean first, perhaps with the hopes of flipping Vichy France and Italy. Thus, a year after the declaration of war, the alliance lands at several places in Morocco and Algeria. Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 is the first in a planned Liberation Trilogy (the second, on the Italian campaign, is in the stack of items to be read; the third has not been released.) Because history is available to those who would investigate it, Book Review N^o. 32 cannot contain spoilers. The French resisted, some more willingly than others, but ultimately many French forces cooperated with the alliance. The Germans fought hard, but their logistical support was inadequate, and their leaders placed excess trust in air power or sheer will power rather than in the big battalions. The alliance's superior numbers ultimately told, although the U.S. troops had to learn how to win.

The book offers useful reinforcements to Jeff Shaara's The Rising Tide, reviewed here, as well as to Patton on film. Apparently the "let nobody come back alive" that George C. Scott's character gives during the push to Bastogne really happened in Africa. Many of the movie's African vingettes, including the death of the general's orderly, are accurate.

The behavior of alliance troops toward indigenous populations was often improper.

(Cross-posted to 50 Book Challenge).