Eighth Army: El Alamein To The River Sangro [Illustrated Edition]
Eighth Army: El Alamein To The River Sangro [Illustrated Edition]

Author: Field Marshal Viscount Bernard Law Montgomery of Alamein KG GCB DSO PC

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2015-11-06

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1782898395

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[Illustrated with 16 highly detailed maps of the actions] Field Marshal Montgomery commanded the Eighth Army from 13th August 1942 until the 31st December 1943, and the 21st Army Group from 1st January 1944 until the German surrender on the 5th May, 1945. Whilst in command of the British Army of the Rhine, in occupation of Germany, shortly after the end of the Second World War Montgomery set out to record the exploits and victories of the troops under his command. Both this volume and its companion volume, Normandy to the Rhine, are superb examples of military history as presented by one of the greatest generals to command victorious armies in the field. The texts are taken from his personal war diaries and are distinguished by his incisive style. The whole strategy and course of these two campaigns are presented to the reader with great clarity and accuracy. El Alamein to the River Sangro is as he himself writes ‘... an authoritative account of the activities of the Eighth Army in the days of its greatest, successes’. El Alamein was the turning point in the war: from that momentous battle the tide against Germany turned. During the time the Eighth Army was commanded by Monty it lost not a single action, and when Monty was transferred to Europe in December 1943, Winston Churchill wrote to him: ‘The immortal march of the Eighth Army from the gates of Cairo along the African shore, through Sicily, has now carried its ever victorious soldiers far into Italy towards the gates of Rome. The scene changes and vastly expands. A great task accomplished gives place to a greater, in which the same unfailing spirit will win for all true men a full and glorious reward.’

United States Army in WWII - the Mediterranean - Sicily and the Surrender of Italy
United States Army in WWII - the Mediterranean - Sicily and the Surrender of Italy

Author: Albert N. Garland

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2014-08-15

Total Pages: 1090

ISBN-13: 1782894098

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[Includes 17 maps and 113 illustrations] This volume, the second to be published in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations subseries, takes up where George F. Howe’s Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West left off. It integrates the Sicilian Campaign with the complicated negotiations involved in the surrender of Italy. The Sicilian Campaign was as complex as the negotiations, and is equally instructive. On the Allied side it included American, British, and Canadian soldiers as well as some Tabors of Goums; major segments of the U.S. Army Air Forces and of the Royal Air Force; and substantial contingents of the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy. Opposing the Allies were ground troops and air forces of Italy and Germany, and the Italian Navy. The fighting included a wide variety of operations: the largest amphibious assault of World War II; parachute jumps and air landings; extended overland marches; tank battles; precise and remarkably successful naval gunfire support of troops on shore; agonizing struggles for ridge tops; and extensive and skillful artillery support. Sicily was a testing ground for the U.S. soldier, fighting beside the more experienced troops of the British Eighth Army, and there the American soldier showed what he could do. The negotiations involved in Italy’s surrender were rivaled in complexity and delicacy only by those leading up to the Korean armistice. The relationship of tactical to diplomatic activity is one of the most instructive and interesting features of this volume. Military men were required to double as diplomats and to play both roles with skill.

United States Army in WWII - the Mediterranean - Salerno to Cassino
United States Army in WWII - the Mediterranean - Salerno to Cassino

Author: Martin Blumenson

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2014-08-15

Total Pages: 920

ISBN-13: 1782894101

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[Includes 16 maps and 94 illustrations] The focus of the American and British war effort in 1943 was on the ancient lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea where in May victory came at last in Tunisia and where in July Allied armies began a five-week campaign to conquer Sicily. The invasion of Italy in September sharpened that focus as Allied troops for the first time since 1940 confronted the German Army in a sustained campaign on the mainland of Europe. The fighting that followed over the next eight months was replete with controversial actions and decisions. These included apparent American peril during the early hours in the Salerno beachhead; a British advance from the toe of the peninsula that failed to ease the pressure at Salerno; the fight to cross a flooded Rapido River; the bombing of the Benedictine abbey on Monte Cassino; and the stalemated landings at Anzio. The author addresses these subjects objectively and candidly as he sets in perspective the campaign in Italy and its accomplishments. It was a grueling struggle for Allied and German soldier alike, a war of small units and individuals dictated in large measure by inhospitable terrain and wet and cold that soon immersed the battlefield. The methods commanders and men employed to defeat the terrain and a resourceful enemy are instructive now and will continue to be in the future, for the harsh conditions that were prevalent in Italy know no boundary in time. Nor do the problems and accomplishments of Allied command and co-ordination anywhere stand out in greater relief than in the campaign in Italy.