The History Book Club discussion

Hello Everyone,

For the weeks of October 14th - October 20th, we are reading Part One - 3. Beachhead - "It's All Over for Now" and Part Two - 4. Pushing East - "We Live in Tragic Hours" and A Cold Country with a Hot Sun of the book - An Army At Dawn..

The sixth week's reading assignment is:

Week Six - October 14th - October 20th
Part One - 3. Beachhead - "It's All Over for Now" and Part Two - 4. Pushing East - "We Live in Tragic Hours" and A Cold Country with a Hot Sun - pages 148 - 177

We will open up a thread for each week's reading. Please make sure to post in the particular thread dedicated to those specific chapters and page numbers to avoid spoilers. We will also open up supplemental threads as we did for other spotlighted books.

This book was kicked off on September 9th.

We look forward to your participation. Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other noted on line booksellers do have copies of the book and shipment can be expedited. The book can also be obtained easily at your local library, local bookstore or on your Kindle. Make sure to pre-order now if you haven't already. This weekly thread will be opened up on October 14th.

There is no rush and we are thrilled to have you join us. It is never too late to get started and/or to post.

Bentley will be leading this discussion and back-up will be Assisting Moderators Christopher and Jerome.

Welcome,

~Bentley

TO ALWAYS SEE ALL WEEKS' THREADS SELECT VIEW ALL

by Rick Atkinson

REMEMBER NO SPOILERS ON THE WEEKLY NON SPOILER THREADS - ON EACH WEEKLY NON SPOILER THREAD - WE ONLY DISCUSS THE PAGES ASSIGNED OR THE PAGES WHICH WERE COVERED IN PREVIOUS WEEKS. IF YOU GO AHEAD OR WANT TO ENGAGE IN MORE EXPANSIVE DISCUSSION - POST THOSE COMMENTS IN ONE OF THE SPOILER THREADS. THESE CHAPTERS HAVE A LOT OF INFORMATION SO WHEN IN DOUBT CHECK WITH THE CHAPTER OVERVIEW AND SUMMARY TO RECALL WHETHER YOUR COMMENTS ARE ASSIGNMENT SPECIFIC. EXAMPLES OF SPOILER THREADS ARE THE GLOSSARY, THE BIBLIOGRAPHY, THE INTRODUCTION AND THE BOOK AS A WHOLE THREADS.

Notes:

It is always a tremendous help when you quote specifically from the book itself and reference the chapter and page numbers when responding. The text itself helps folks know what you are referencing and makes things clear.

Citations:

If an author or book is mentioned other than the book and author being discussed, citations must be included according to our guidelines. Also, when citing other sources, please provide credit where credit is due and/or the link. There is no need to re-cite the author and the book we are discussing however.

If you need help - here is a thread called the Mechanics of the Board which will show you how:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2...

Introduction Thread:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Table of Contents and Syllabus

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Glossary

Remember there is a glossary thread where ancillary information is placed by the moderator. This is also a thread where additional information can be placed by the group members regarding the subject matter being discussed.

Glossary - Part One - http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/8...

Glossary - Part Two - http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Glossary - Part Three - http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Bibliography

There is a Bibliography where books cited in the text are posted with proper citations and reviews. We also post the books that the author used in his research or in his notes. Please also feel free to add to the Bibliography thread any related books, etc with proper citations. No self promotion, please.

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Book as a Whole and Final Thoughts - SPOILER THREAD

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

by Rick Atkinson

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Part One

3. Beachhead

It's All Over for Now

Hewitt then made a fateful decision to leave many of his transport ships holding
much-needed supplies off Fedala, instead of sending them to nearby Casablanca to
unload. A German sub torpedoed three vessels that night, sinking one of them.
warned ships to be wary; troops were scheduled to arrive in the already crowded
harbor the next day. That night, another German sub hit three full troop transports,
incapacitating all three and killing 140 men. The remaining convoy was diverted to
Casablanca. Hewitt sailed back to Hampton Roads.

In Algiers, Darlan again switched loyalties after learning that Germany had invaded
Vichy France. He met with Clark and Eisenhower on November 13. They agreed that
Darlan would be the North African High Commissioner while Giraud would serve as
Chief of the French Armed Forces.

These initial battles had shown many critical errors and revealed that the army still
needed to learn how to fight effectively. The over-optimism that caused many of the problems had not abated, however. The White House was told that Tripoli could be expected to fall within two months.

Major Terry Allen's eventual decision to bypass St. Cloud after having several attacks repulsed might seem obvious, but at the time, Allies were assigning too much importance to small side battles like this one. The mission for the troops was to take Oran as soon as possible. If St. Cloud took too many resources (which it did), it should have been bypassed. Having commanders thinking on the field as situations changed was an important factor; it was important to see the big picture and not get sidetracked by less important skirmishes.

The Allied over-optimism was buoyed by the fact that no "real" fighting had occurred yet. While some French units did fight back with intensity, the Allies were given the impression that this was as difficult as it would get. This was to be proven wrong in the months to come when they came up against experienced German troops for the first time.

Part Two

4. Pushing East

"We Live in Tragic Hours"

Hitler had decided that North Africa had to be held at all costs. He wanted Tunisia to be the staging ground for his offensive. Field Marshal Albert Kesselring was the
Luftwaffe Commander in charge of all Axis air and ground units in North Africa. He
planned to mount an attack to push the newly arrived Allied forces back to the sea. On November 9, German Luftwaffe fighters began landing at the airfield northeast of Tunis. Transport planes followed. The French forces surrounded the field but did not attack and eventually let the Germans leave the field. As more German troops arrived, they moved north to the port at Bizerte where the French "defenders" stood down and let the Germans take the city. Only one French commander (General Barre) remained loyal to the Allies and took his 9,000 troops out of the area to fight the Germans another day. He went into the hills to await Allied orders.

A Cold Country with a Hot Sun

Spirits were very high as Allied troops moved east from Algiers towards Tunis.
Deciphered Axis codes told Eisenhower how many Axis troops were moving into
Tunisia, but he severely underestimated their abilities. Also, the Allies did not hasten their advance on Tunisia, even with the knowledge that the Axis numbers were still small, but growing. American armored units who had trained together were broken up and sent to assist the British, with no measures taken to integrate the troops.

Eisenhower's planning also left much to be desired. Little transportation had been set up to take the large American forces east. Officers tried to purchase local antiquated vehicles or use the unreliable coal-fed trains to ship troops. Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson became Commander of the British 1st Army on November 11. Eisenhower urged him to move east quickly.

British troops landed at Bougie in eastern Algeria on the same day. Their failure to
also take a nearby airfield (due to weather) caused their air cover to be grounded hitting several transports. They also attacked the following day. At Bone, 125 miles east, Allied commandos had taken the town unopposed but were powerless as more German planes bombed the town, alienating the locals' sympathies from both sides. British and American paratroopers did have successes in taking other villages ahead of
the army's path, but the local villagers were becoming wise to the situation and did not
welcome the troops, as they usually preceded German dive-bombers.

Make sure that you are familiar with the HBC's rules and guidelines and what is allowed on goodreads and HBC in terms of user content. Also, there is no self promotion, spam or marketing allowed.

Here are the rules and guidelines of the HBC:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/5...

Please on the non spoiler threads: a) Stick to material in the present week's reading.

Also, in terms of all of the threads for discussion here and on the HBC - please be civil.

We want our discussion to be interesting and fun.

Make sure to cite a book using the proper format.

You don't need to cite the Atkinson book, but if you bring another book into the conversation; please cite it accordingly as required but you do not have to cite the author Atkinson either.

Also, to make it easier - here are the special citation rules for this book discussion - if the person is mentioned in the assigned pages for the weekly reading - you do not have to cite that person even if he or she is an author of books or other documents. However, if you cite someone who is not part of the chapter readings - then you must cite him or her and you must always do a proper citation if you are mentioning any other book aside from An Army At Dawn.

Now we can begin week six.....

Patton and Hewitt Thaw the Ice and Jean Bart est finis.

Patton and Hewitt's relationship was thawing but it would not be until Sicily (nine months later) that they would call each other by their first names.


French Battleship - Jean Bart

And Hewitt and Augusta finally got the Jean Bart good.

But Patton was going to disobey orders from Ike. What did Ike order him to do? What had he decided to do and what stopped him?

Atkinson outlined some of Patton's defects - "a wanton disregard of logistics; a childish propensity to feud with other services; a incapacity to empathize with frightened young soldiers; a willingness to disregard the spirit if not the letter of the orders from his superiors; and an archaic tendency to assess his own generalship on the basis of personal courage under fire".

Discussion Questions:

Obviously Ike had his hands full with Patton but was Ike (based upon the battles and operations thus far) doing the job he should have been doing? Where had Ike excelled thus far and where had Ike fallen short? Was he really ready to be the Supreme Allied Commander? What strengths has Atkinson pointed out thus far in Ike and where do you think he felt that Ike was coming up short?

What has surprised you the most about the North African operation thus far?

So many things have surprised me, but to name a few in order of intensity:
1. The French.
2. Following the British plan no matter the cost.
3. The French.
4.. American logistical issues.
5. The French.

Tom wrote: "So many things have surprised me, but to name a few in order of intensity:

1. The French.
2. Following the British plan no matter the cost.
3. The French.
4. American logistical issues.
5. The French..."

Great index Tom.

Indeed, the fact a French officer threw up his hands in a mock surrender and said, "Chicago, I give up!" (p. 150, paperback)...not many people laughing...

Don't forget Admiral Derrien: "November 8, we fight everybody, November 9, we fight the Germans, November 10 we fight nobody, at noon we fight the Germans, November 11 we fight nobody." Page 165
Seems the French were as confused at the time as historians are looking back after all these years...

Well said, Tom, yikes..no, double yikes.

Bentley asked about Ike up to this point. We see that he finally gets out of his bunker, which, I think, was the right choice. I think it is good for a supreme commander to look at the situation beyond the reports (and I don't think he was getting many of those in the chaos.)

He was working on the French, so you can see his political skills being applied early on. You had to smile a little when he called the French stupid. Pretty honest.

Bryan wrote: "Well said, Tom, yikes..no, double yikes.

Bentley asked about Ike up to this point. We see that he finally gets out of his bunker, which, I think, was the right choice. I think it is good for a s..."

In all my reading and studying of WWII, I never can understand how after WWI, and living next door to Germany during the Nazi build up, that France NEVER seemed to have a proper response to German aggression. They paused, failed to react, then argued, then fell back on national pride, and by that time they had lost any chance of a coherent effort to fight Germany. The Vichy response in North Africa was same chapter, different verse.
Ike's description to me, seems right on target.

Very hard time, Tom, indeed. Atkinson writes after Admiral Derrien writes in his diary about the orders to fight changed hourly, the Germans, then the Americans, etc., "Perhaps no passage written during the war better captured the agony of France and the moral gyrations to which her sons were subject." (p. 165, paperback)

"her sons..." the saddest part of all. That is a haunting aspect of this, perhaps the sons, more than others suffered the effects of French indecision.

This week makes me appreciate how difficult the transition was from a occupying army to a strike-force as the men moved east on Tunisia. They didn't have enough trucks and the air and ground forces were not coordinated. Talk about being green.

That is a good point Bryan, American forces did not seem to have it together. With the efficiency of our armed forces today, it is a difficult to envision a time when things did not run so smoothly. We still have a knack for trying things, making mistakes, then making adjustments. The unarmored/armored Humvee in recent times is an example.

Good point on the recent events, Tom. It also shows that the U.S. factories did not ramp up 100% to its potential at this point in the war. It is a stark contrast between Operation Torch and say 1944-45.

What are your thoughts about General Anderson and his shyness?

I would think this would be hard for a front-line commander.

Maybe our image of a good leader is the confrontational, out front "Patton" type but Anderson seemed to get some things done. I am not sure an administrator-general-leader has to follow the Patton model to be effective. Bradley comes to mind...
Am I off here?

I don't think so Tom, good observation

Tom wrote: "Bryan wrote: "Well said, Tom, yikes..no, double yikes.

Bentley asked about Ike up to this point. We see that he finally gets out of his bunker, which, I think, was the right choice. I think it i..."

So a French friend of mine - now 60 so born after the war - has said to me that the French suffered so, lost so many young men, in WWI that they had little heart for WWII - especially after the Maginot Line (their big defense plan) failed so quickly.

I also think that the egos of the French staff in North Africa - and maybe their long term feeling that the Germans would prevail - made them fight.

The French resistance was not so noticeable during the war. Their cooperation in the Vichy south with the Germans was notable.

I think that DeGaulle set up his little Free French Army in England and forged the position the French enjoyed after the war. For example a "winning" partner entitled to a seat on the UN Security Council.

Interesting, Vince, on how WWI affected them so greatly.

I found much interesting in this section beyond what has been mentioned above.

It seems to me that, compared to the army in or at North Africa, Naval Glory was mush harder to find and Hewitt even acknowledges the Navy's job was to support the army.

It is interesting that Hewitt (pg 156 P 4) felt "melancloy ... over 140 men lost" while (pg 158 last P) Eisenhouser the loss was "insignificant companed to the advantage we have won" - at that point 1100 wounded or killed men and finally Torch lost (pg 159) 2225 men of which 1100 killed.

Maybe that is why E could get to be president. If he had had Hewitt's feelings how could he have negotiated with these French?

What is also interests me (what is coming up?) is Atkinson comment at the end of Part I - end pg 160 "they believed they had already been to war".

Thanks, Vince, I guess this goes to Ike's political sense...you have to put your emotions in a proper place to keep going, and as a coalition leader, begin to look at the larger picture.