Nov. 4, 2009
BOOK REVIEW: 'No Less Than Victory' Completes Shaara's WWII Trilogy
From The Battle of the Bulge to V-E Day
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Jeff Shaara's "No Less Than Victory: A Novel of World War II" (Ballantine Books, 480 pages, $28.00) completes the prolific author's WW II in Europe trilogy that began with "The Rising Tide" and continued with "The Steel Wave." "No Less Than Victory" begins with The Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and ends with the German surrender in May 1945.
Like Shaara's other novels, "No Less Than Victory" combines historical figures -- Eisenhower, Gen. George S. Patton, Gen. Omar Bradley, Lt. Gen. Walter Bedel "Beetle" Smith, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, Albert Kesselring, Albert Speer, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery and many others -- with fictional fighting men in the front lines, doing the grunt work of war and standing in for the millions of soldiers that served in the war. Two of them, Pvts. Eddie Benson and Kenny Mitchell, are particularly well drawn, while another, Sgt. John Buckley, a bombardier in a B-17 shot down by the Germans and sent to a Luft-Stalag prisoner of war camp, shows how dangerous it was in the Allied bombers that blasted much of Europe to rubble.
Mitchell and Benson owe their lives to another fictional soldier, Sgt. Bruce Higgins. In an "afterward" the author tells us what happens to the real and fictional characters.
The fictional characters have a "Willie & Joe" ring about them, with a reference to the bedraggled front line "dogfaces" portrayed by Army cartoonist Sgt. Bill Mauldin. Shaara provides a scene with Gen. George "Blood & Guts" Patton ranting about Mauldin's cartoons in Stars & Stripes. Shaara does a fine job with the historical figures and I recognize some of the details from my extensive reading about the war. His thorough research shines through and the book should serve as a useful introduction to the final six months of the fighting in Europe. Missing in Shaara's novel is any account in depth of the Russian advance on the Eastern Front, although there is a reference to the Soviet Army's halt outside Warsaw in August 1944 that gave the Germans the chance to destroy the Polish Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising.
Perhaps the best portrayal of German leaders is Shaara's depiction of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, who was in charge of Wehrmacht forces facing the Americans, British, Canadian, French and other Allied forces in France, Belgium, Luxemburg and later in the German Homeland. Shaara also does a fine job with Hitler's favorite architect, Albert Speer, who was in charge of war production and slave labor efforts and who somehow escaped the hangman's knot at Nuremberg to serve a lengthy term in Spandau Prison.
The Ardennes Offensive that began on Dec. 16, 1944 -- quickly called by the news media The Battle of the Bulge -- was Hitler's last gasp on the western front, a desperate attempt to drive a wedge between the Allied forces and allow the Germans to retake the port of Antwerp. Shaara provides maps to help the reader see the big picture of the offensive and how Patton, Hodges, Montgomery and other leaders, under the command of Eisenhower, turned the tide.
German atrocities against civilians in Belgium and soldiers at the Malmedy Massacre led to a toughening of the attitude voiced by Gen. George Patton that the only thing better than killing Germans was killing more Germans. But it wasn't until the Allies liberated their first concentration camp that the extent of German crimes against humanity became apparent to Allies. Patton ordered the civilians of the nearby towns to visit the Ohrdruf concentration camp, near Gotha, Germany, part of the Buchenwald complex.
Ohrdruf was liberated on April 4, 1945 by Patton's 4th Armored Division and the 89th Infantry Division, the first camp liberated by the U.S. Army. The 89th Infantry division included Charlie Payne of Augusta, Kansas, the then 20-year-old great uncle of President Obama. In his introductory "To the Reader," Shaara relates how he was in Washington, DC at the time an 88-year-old Holocaust denier charged into the Holocaust Museum and shot and killed a security guard -- and the need to remind everyone of the atrocities committed by the Germans during the war.
Eisenhower ordered the news media to document the horrors of Ohrdruf and other camps so that no one would be in a position to deny what happened there and chalk it up to Allied "propaganda." Shaara draws on Patton's diary in his description of the Ohrdruf liberation. Here's an extended version from Patton's diary:
"No Less Than Victory" is a powerful evocation of the war in Europe that will appeal to WW II buffs and the general reader alike. It's a book that literally impossible to put down until the very end.
As Veterans Day draws near, and the ranks of World War II veterans thins dramatically, it's important to remember what Shaara describes in this book. He writes (on the Amazon.com page describing this book):
"When I began to tackle the subject of the Second World War, I was concerned that I would be unable to find a story to tell that you did not already know. This is one subject that even Hollywood has (sometimes) treated with an honest hand, magnificent stories that may or may not be genuine history, but at least are honest in their ambitions. What can I add to that? What can I tell you about George Patton or D-Day or the Holocaust that you don’t already know? The answer to that was a surprise to me, and it is my fervent hope that in the trilogy I’ve just completed, it is a surprise to you.
"Heroes come in strange packages, and often, the decent and the honorable emerge in places we don’t expect to find them. Throughout my research on World War Two, I was caught off guard many times by the strength of character that came not just from the familiar names, the leaders, but the unfamiliar: the men of the Airborne and the tanks and the men who carried the rifle. I was surprised as well by the enemy, in this case, the Germans. Not every man who obeyed Hitler was simply a goose-stepping monster, and so, some of them, Rommel and Kesselring and von Rundstedt and Speer... add to these stories in ways I did not expect.
"Ultimately, the stories I write must entertain, which, when writing about war, can seem terribly inappropriate. World War Two gave us more horror than most of us can possibly absorb. But we must not forget that many did absorb it. Many carry those stories still, often unspoken, unrevealed, those aging GIs whose memories have always been stirred by the sights and smells and the horrific loss. And throughout the horror there are different memories, the uplifting, the humorous, and alongside the tears and the screams there is laughter. It is after all, how the veteran survives.
"Their numbers are fewer every day, and as they leave us, many will carry the stories with them. Often, as we watched them grow older, we dared not ask for the tales, cautioned by a parent perhaps, warned against prying or digging too deeply into the old veteran’s silent horror. Even in the name of research, it is not my place to probe where I am not invited. But the history is there for us to explore, the events real, the people true to life, the heroism and the horror a part of their legacy, a legacy we must not forget. It’s the least we can do."
About the Author: The son of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Shaara, author of The Killer Angels, Jeff Shaara, born in 1952, completed his father's Civil War trilogy with Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure, and went on to earn acclaim as an author of historical novels that included books about the American Revolution, World War I and World War II in Europe. His web site is www.JeffShaara.com.
Publisher's web site: www.ballantinebooks.com
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BOOK REVIEW: 'No Less Than Victory' Completes Shaara's WWII Trilogy
From The Battle of the Bulge to V-E Day
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Jeff Shaara's "No Less Than Victory: A Novel of World War II" (Ballantine Books, 480 pages, $28.00) completes the prolific author's WW II in Europe trilogy that began with "The Rising Tide" and continued with "The Steel Wave." "No Less Than Victory" begins with The Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and ends with the German surrender in May 1945.
Like Shaara's other novels, "No Less Than Victory" combines historical figures -- Eisenhower, Gen. George S. Patton, Gen. Omar Bradley, Lt. Gen. Walter Bedel "Beetle" Smith, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, Albert Kesselring, Albert Speer, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery and many others -- with fictional fighting men in the front lines, doing the grunt work of war and standing in for the millions of soldiers that served in the war. Two of them, Pvts. Eddie Benson and Kenny Mitchell, are particularly well drawn, while another, Sgt. John Buckley, a bombardier in a B-17 shot down by the Germans and sent to a Luft-Stalag prisoner of war camp, shows how dangerous it was in the Allied bombers that blasted much of Europe to rubble.
Mitchell and Benson owe their lives to another fictional soldier, Sgt. Bruce Higgins. In an "afterward" the author tells us what happens to the real and fictional characters.
The fictional characters have a "Willie & Joe" ring about them, with a reference to the bedraggled front line "dogfaces" portrayed by Army cartoonist Sgt. Bill Mauldin. Shaara provides a scene with Gen. George "Blood & Guts" Patton ranting about Mauldin's cartoons in Stars & Stripes. Shaara does a fine job with the historical figures and I recognize some of the details from my extensive reading about the war. His thorough research shines through and the book should serve as a useful introduction to the final six months of the fighting in Europe. Missing in Shaara's novel is any account in depth of the Russian advance on the Eastern Front, although there is a reference to the Soviet Army's halt outside Warsaw in August 1944 that gave the Germans the chance to destroy the Polish Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising.
Perhaps the best portrayal of German leaders is Shaara's depiction of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, who was in charge of Wehrmacht forces facing the Americans, British, Canadian, French and other Allied forces in France, Belgium, Luxemburg and later in the German Homeland. Shaara also does a fine job with Hitler's favorite architect, Albert Speer, who was in charge of war production and slave labor efforts and who somehow escaped the hangman's knot at Nuremberg to serve a lengthy term in Spandau Prison.
The Ardennes Offensive that began on Dec. 16, 1944 -- quickly called by the news media The Battle of the Bulge -- was Hitler's last gasp on the western front, a desperate attempt to drive a wedge between the Allied forces and allow the Germans to retake the port of Antwerp. Shaara provides maps to help the reader see the big picture of the offensive and how Patton, Hodges, Montgomery and other leaders, under the command of Eisenhower, turned the tide.
German atrocities against civilians in Belgium and soldiers at the Malmedy Massacre led to a toughening of the attitude voiced by Gen. George Patton that the only thing better than killing Germans was killing more Germans. But it wasn't until the Allies liberated their first concentration camp that the extent of German crimes against humanity became apparent to Allies. Patton ordered the civilians of the nearby towns to visit the Ohrdruf concentration camp, near Gotha, Germany, part of the Buchenwald complex.
Ohrdruf was liberated on April 4, 1945 by Patton's 4th Armored Division and the 89th Infantry Division, the first camp liberated by the U.S. Army. The 89th Infantry division included Charlie Payne of Augusta, Kansas, the then 20-year-old great uncle of President Obama. In his introductory "To the Reader," Shaara relates how he was in Washington, DC at the time an 88-year-old Holocaust denier charged into the Holocaust Museum and shot and killed a security guard -- and the need to remind everyone of the atrocities committed by the Germans during the war.
Eisenhower ordered the news media to document the horrors of Ohrdruf and other camps so that no one would be in a position to deny what happened there and chalk it up to Allied "propaganda." Shaara draws on Patton's diary in his description of the Ohrdruf liberation. Here's an extended version from Patton's diary:
"In a shed . . . was a pile of about 40 completely naked human bodies in the last stages of emaciation. These bodies were lightly sprinkled with lime, not for the purposes of destroying them, but for the purpose of removing the stench. When the shed was full--I presume its capacity to be about 200, the bodies were taken to a pit a mile from the camp where they were buried. The inmates claimed that 3,000 men, who had been either shot in the head or who had died of starvation, had been so buried since the 1st of January. When we began to approach with our troops, the Germans thought it expedient to remove the evidence of their crime. Therefore, they had some of the slaves exhume the bodies and place them on a mammoth griddle composed of 60-centimeter railway tracks laid on brick foundations. They poured pitch on the bodies and then built a fire of pinewood and coal under them. They were not very successful in their operations because there was a pile of human bones, skulls, charred torsos on or under the griddle which must have accounted for many hundreds."(Editor's note: The accompanying photo shows the April 12, 1945 tour of Ohrdruf by Eisenhower, Patton and others).
"No Less Than Victory" is a powerful evocation of the war in Europe that will appeal to WW II buffs and the general reader alike. It's a book that literally impossible to put down until the very end.
As Veterans Day draws near, and the ranks of World War II veterans thins dramatically, it's important to remember what Shaara describes in this book. He writes (on the Amazon.com page describing this book):
"When I began to tackle the subject of the Second World War, I was concerned that I would be unable to find a story to tell that you did not already know. This is one subject that even Hollywood has (sometimes) treated with an honest hand, magnificent stories that may or may not be genuine history, but at least are honest in their ambitions. What can I add to that? What can I tell you about George Patton or D-Day or the Holocaust that you don’t already know? The answer to that was a surprise to me, and it is my fervent hope that in the trilogy I’ve just completed, it is a surprise to you.
"Heroes come in strange packages, and often, the decent and the honorable emerge in places we don’t expect to find them. Throughout my research on World War Two, I was caught off guard many times by the strength of character that came not just from the familiar names, the leaders, but the unfamiliar: the men of the Airborne and the tanks and the men who carried the rifle. I was surprised as well by the enemy, in this case, the Germans. Not every man who obeyed Hitler was simply a goose-stepping monster, and so, some of them, Rommel and Kesselring and von Rundstedt and Speer... add to these stories in ways I did not expect.
"Ultimately, the stories I write must entertain, which, when writing about war, can seem terribly inappropriate. World War Two gave us more horror than most of us can possibly absorb. But we must not forget that many did absorb it. Many carry those stories still, often unspoken, unrevealed, those aging GIs whose memories have always been stirred by the sights and smells and the horrific loss. And throughout the horror there are different memories, the uplifting, the humorous, and alongside the tears and the screams there is laughter. It is after all, how the veteran survives.
"Their numbers are fewer every day, and as they leave us, many will carry the stories with them. Often, as we watched them grow older, we dared not ask for the tales, cautioned by a parent perhaps, warned against prying or digging too deeply into the old veteran’s silent horror. Even in the name of research, it is not my place to probe where I am not invited. But the history is there for us to explore, the events real, the people true to life, the heroism and the horror a part of their legacy, a legacy we must not forget. It’s the least we can do."
About the Author: The son of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Shaara, author of The Killer Angels, Jeff Shaara, born in 1952, completed his father's Civil War trilogy with Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure, and went on to earn acclaim as an author of historical novels that included books about the American Revolution, World War I and World War II in Europe. His web site is www.JeffShaara.com.
Publisher's web site: www.ballantinebooks.com
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