A review by mark_lm
The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 by Rick Atkinson

4.0

A swell history of the Allies in Western Europe. Part three of Atkinson's five star trilogy about the campaigns in North Africa/Italy/Western Europe. I have read a lot about this story (The longest day, Is paris burning?, A bridge too far, The last battle, etc.), but I think I appreciated this history more because of it. It must be a daunting task to write this complex story, after all, what do you include? But Atkinson has done a great, even swell, job. Most fascinating are the assorted weirdos who were in charge of things (Le Lattre, De Gaulle, Montgomery, Patton); it seems almost impossible that they could accomplish anything together. I also enjoyed the various parts of the story that I knew little or nothing about, the landing at Marseilles and campaign in central France, the problems in the Colmar pocket, accusations against the French in Stuttgart, the US fear that the Germans were massing a secret army in the Alps, Patton's attempt to use an armored battalion to try to rescue his son-in-law from a POW camp, a detailed account of the meeting at Yalta including the problem with bedbugs. Highly recommended - read all three.

By the way, nowhere in the book did I find the quote attributed to Paul Reynaud that "De Gaulle has the character of a pig, but he has character."
Also the author mistakenly uses the word "gutful" to mean brave two or three times.