Inferno: The World at War, 1939–1945. Max Hastings. Random House.729 pages; black-and-white photographs;maps; notes; index; $35.

By COL Stanley L. FalkU.S. Army retired

World War II has been over fornearly 67 years, yet interest in

the great conflict is still as strong asever. New books, from small battlestudies to large overall accounts, con-tinue to appear and flourish. One ofthe latter, and certainly one of the best,is Max Hastings’ Inferno: The World atWar, 1939–1945, an in-depth examina-tion of the human side of the war.Max Hastings is a British journalist,

editor and war correspondent. Theauthor of more than 20 books, half ofwhich cover aspects of World War II,he synthesizes and caps his earlierworks in this volume. Inferno is aspellbinding and beautifully writtensummary, analysis and unflinchingdescription of the horrendous per-sonal impact of that great struggle.This book, as he states, is “chiefly

about human experience.” It focuseson the fears, struggles and trials ofthose millions of ordinary people—both soldiers and civilians—whoseeveryday lives were rudely inter-rupted by the harsh impact of totalwar. Men, women and children allfaced “ordeals that in many caseslasted for years, and for at least 60million were terminated by death.”Hastings graphically describes atroci-ties on both sides, especially duringthe savage fighting in the final stagesof the war in Eastern Europe.

Inferno thus differs markedly fromother fine volumes on World War IIsuch as John Keegan’s The SecondWorld War, with its emphasis on strat-egy, operations and military leaders;Gerhard Weinberg’s A World at Arms:A Global History of World War II, which

covers the major high-level aspects ofthe war; Andrew Roberts’ The Storm ofWar: A New History of the Second WorldWar, which focuses on the Germanside of the war; and other works thatanalyze strategy and tactics or key de-cision making. Hastings’ long, sweep-ing panorama covers most events ofWorld War II but concentrates onthose ordinary individuals whose spe-cific experiences are often overlookedin more general studies.

The book is by no means a completehistory of the war. The author has al-ready covered many aspects of it in hisearlier works, notably Overlord: D-Day& the Battle for Normandy; Bomber Com-mand; Armageddon: The Battle for Ger-many, 1944–1945; and Retribution: TheBattle for Japan, 1944–45. So he avoidsrepeating material that he has previ-ously related in detail. Thus while In-ferno describes in general terms themajor military campaigns of the warand often, in some detail, the harshcombat, its focus on individual experi-ences and recollections gives it anepisodic, almost impressionistic ap-pearance.

The striking feature of the book is itsuse of hundreds of vivid personal testi-monies to brilliantly illustrate its theme.The opening pages describe the enthu-siasm of a young Polish fighter pilot inthe first days of war: “We wanted tofight, it excited us, and we … didn’t be-lieve that something bad could reallyhappen.” A euphoric young Germanexpressed this “wonderful feeling” tobe marching into Poland, but then, asGerman bombs killed women and chil-dren, a nurse saw a “procession ofwounded, … an unending march ofdeath,” and a senior British observerwrote bitterly that “I saw the very faceof war change—its glory shorn …women and children being buried.” Less than a year later, a British sol-

dier, fearing public scorn or worse af-ter his evacuation from Dunkirk, wassurprised to be greeted by “peoplecheering and clapping [for] us as if wewere heroes.” Then a British teenager,trapped in Paris, likened the Germanentry to a “gigantic green snake thatwound itself around the heart of thebroken city, which waited patheticallyto be swallowed up.”It was the fierce struggle for eastern

Europe, after Germany invaded theSoviet Union, that exacted the greatesttoll on both soldiers and civilians. Thetwo-year Siege of Leningrad alonesaw probably a million deaths. Mostof these came under German shellingand bombing, but tens of thousandsof citizens died of starvation. Breadrations were severely limited; somepeople ate grass cakes. “The greatesthorror,” wrote one woman, was “whereto get something edible. … Life [had]been reduced to one thing—the huntfor food.” Corpses lined the streets. Inthe sub-zero winter temperature, oneman thawed another’s frozen legs toremove his boots. Altogether the siege“cost its defenders and citizens morelives than Britain and America to-gether lost in the entire war.”

April 2012 � ARMY 77

Reviews

The Human Experience of War

Indeed, in the first year of fightingin Russia alone almost 3 million Russ-ian and a million German soldierswere killed, a toll that increased al-most exponentially as the war wenton. The huge number of Russian civil-ian deaths is almost incalculable. Star-vation, German artillery and shockingatrocities took the lives of countlessmen, women and children. Children’sdeaths were the most shocking. “Weunderstand the horrors of war,” wrotea Russian officer. “But children, theseblossoms of life … these innocent holysouls … We’ve failed to protect them… One’s thoughts freeze with horrorat the sight of small bloodsoaked bod-ies, with gnarled fingers and distortedlittle faces.”Such personal testimonies appear

on almost every page of Hastings’ ac-count. They lend authenticity and im-mediacy to his powerful narrative.The text is further enriched by the fre-quent inclusion of statistical informa-tion: troop strengths, casualties, dis-tances, speeds of advance and retreat,shipping losses, public opinion polls,and other informative material.Hastings also doesn’t hesitate to state

his strong opinions on important sub-jects. Germany, he writes, “made warvery badly,” but the German armyfought “brilliantly.” Yet it was too will-ing to accept Hitler and the “murder-ous adventure” into which he commit-ted the Wehrmacht. Both Germany and

Japan “made strategy with awesomeincompetence,” but their soldiers dis-played “high courage and tacticalskills.” The Japanese military neverthe-less had a deep “cultural incapacity” toconsider what the enemy might do.

Both Hitler and Stalin cost theirarmies hundreds of thousands oflives by forbidding them to yield evenan inch of ground. Yet, Stalin man-aged to overcome his “limitations as amilitary commander” and eventuallycreated “an extraordinary militarymachine.” Its victories, however, werewon at “a human cost no democracywould have accepted.” It was also a“barbarous army,” as indeed was thebrutal Japanese soldiery.Hastings writes that Winston Church-

ill saved Britain in 1940 and was wiseto support the Soviet Union. The primeminister was also correct in insistingon invading North Africa, but he erredin his other strategic ideas, and the per-formance of the British army itselfthroughout the war was “unsatisfac-tory.” Field Marshal Sir Bernard LawMontgomery was a “highly competentprofessional” who deserves “signif-icant credit” for the successful Alliedinvasion of France. Yet he “neverachieved a masterstroke.”President Roosevelt rallied the Amer-

ican people after Pearl Harbor andwas wise to support Britain and Rus-sia, but might not have actually led

the country into war had the Axis notforced him to do so.GEN George C. Marshall “showed

greatness as a statesman as well as awarlord.” Then-GEN Dwight D. Eisen-hower was not an outstanding strate-gist or tactician but “achieved great-ness by his diplomatic management ofthe Anglo-American alliance in thefield.” GEN Douglas MacArthur was“distinguished by the splendor of hisself-image … rather than by gifts as abattlefield commander.” A number of Russian generals were

commanders “of the highest gifts.”Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita was Japan’s“ablest ground-force commander.”Japanese admirals “displayed aston-ishing timidity,” and Adm. Isoroku Ya-mamoto, while initially very success-ful, was largely to blame for the navy’slater defeats.The Potsdam Declaration, concludes

Hastings, was not sufficiently specificas an ultimatum, yet Japan itself wasresponsible for the atomic destructionof Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Inferno is an original, thoughtful,

perceptive and very readable account.It offers a view of the war both fasci-nating and disturbing, and capturesthe essence of that great cataclysmicstruggle.

COL Stanley L. Falk, USA Ret., Ph.D.,is a military historian and author spe-cializing in World War II.

78 ARMY � April 2012

Between War and Peace: How Amer-ica Ends Its Wars. COL MatthewMoten, editor. The Free Press. 371 pages;maps; index; $17.

By LTC Jon Scott Logel U.S. Army retired

Aquarter century ago, Charles E.Heller and William A. Stofft pub-

lished America’s First Battles, 1776–1965,a collection of essays by leading mili-tary historians that focused on how theU.S. military transitioned from peace towar. Commissioned by GEN DonnStarry while he was the commander of

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Com-mand (TRADOC), that book was tohelp the “Army’s officer corps … antic-ipate the nature and evolution of futureconflicts.” A staple of military educa-tion and officer development, America’sFirst Battles subscribes to the idea that ifAmerican leaders study past wars, theycan achieve a better victory in the next.Now, as the nation hopes to end a

decade of war, COL Matthew Motenhas led the effort to follow America’sFirst Battleswith Between War and Peace:How America Ends Its Wars, a similarcollection of essays written by today’smost prominent military historians.

This time, however, the authors focuson the transition from war to peace. In 2009, GEN Martin E. Dempsey, as

commander of TRADOC, asked COLMoten to lead a collaborative study of“war termination in American history.”COL Moten writes that the endings to American conflicts “have broughtabout unforeseen and unwanted conse-quences; the aftermath has seldom re-sembled the peaceful future the na-tion’s leaders had imagined and hopedfor when they first decided for war.” The book’s 15 essayists explore a

timeless problem that is arguably“more complex than war itself.” From

The Complexities of Ending War

the Battle of Yorktown through theend of Desert Storm in 1991, the au-thors systematically analyze the trajec-tory of America’s wars by examiningthe origins, evolving political aims,changing strategic objectives, war ter-mination and the implications of thepeace that followed. Between War andPeace is a study of policy and strategythat seeks to inform not only the mili-tary leader but also the civilian leader-ship, who ultimately must decide be-tween waging war and making peace.

Roger J. Spiller’s first essay sets thebook’s tone by making six general

propositions about the American per-spective of war termination. Notingthat these propositions may appear“counterintuitive” at first, Spiller in-vites readers to question the idea of adecisive campaign and to considermore carefully how in “war the aimsof all sides … gradually converge to-ward an agreement to stop fighting.”Instead of just focusing on how oneside compels the other to do its will,as Clausewitz describes, Spiller and

the other authors thoughtfully con-sider the aims of all sides as the bel-ligerents reach war’s end.

Between War and Peace explores theconvergence of adversarial war aimsacross the continuum of American mili-

tary history. By framing their analyseswith familiar wars and events, the au-thors help us understand the complexi-ties of war termination. For example,Ira D. Gruber’s chapter on the end ofthe American Revolutionary War re-counts the well-known events thattranspired between Yorktown and theTreaty of Paris, and then considers howthose terms failed to resolve Americansecurity interests on the western fron-tier and the Atlantic Ocean. In his chapter on the War of 1812,

Wayne E. Lee argues that the Battles ofPlattsburgh were decisive in endingthe war for Britain; the United States,however, pursued a “fortress America”postwar strategy based upon the burn-ing of Washington, D.C., and the de-fense of Baltimore, Md. With both ofthese early wars, the authors make thecase that U.S. postwar policy was mis-guided in light of the threats and con-flicts that came next.Two chapters focus on the conflict

between the U.S. Army and NativeAmericans. John W. Hall’s essay on theSeminole Wars highlights how the U.S.

April 2012 � ARMY 79

tends to prepare for the wars it wantsto fight, not the ones it is more likely toencounter. Hall compares LT William T.Sherman’s prediction of the Indianwars that would dominate much of the19th century with the War Depart-ment’s strategic choice to fortify the At-lantic seaboard. Peter Maslowski exam-ines the Indian wars by framing themin the context of the 300-Years War, tak-ing a longer view of the conflict that be-gan with European contact in NorthAmerica and continued through the1890s. In a later chapter, Brian McAllis-ter Linn highlights the connections be-tween the Indian wars and the nation’sconflict with guerrillas in the Philip-pines. Linn builds on Maslowski’s ob-servations by noting that Americanmilitary leaders relearned tactics andpractices first used on the westernplains of the United States when itcame to fighting the Philippine War atthe turn of the 20th century. In the chapters on conventional

wars, which include the Mexican War(Joseph G. Dawson), the Civil War(Joseph T. Glatthaar), World Wars Iand II (Edward M. Coffman, TheodoreA. Wilson and Gerhard L. Weinberg)and the Korean War (Conrad C. Crane),

readers will find well-known topicsthat illustrate the relationship betweenpolitical concerns and strategic alter-natives. Particularly rich are the pas-sages on postwar occupations of Mex-ico City, the American South, Japanand Germany. Crane’s chapter on airpower in the Korean War is a concisesummary of the allure and shortcom-ings of the aerial instrument in bring-ing an enemy to terms. Underscoringthe importance of the political leader-ship in any war termination, GeorgeC. Herring’s essay stresses the influ-ence of Ronald Reagan’s and MikhailGorbachev’s leadership and judgmentin ending the Cold War.

Perhaps the book’s most provoca-tive essays come at the end, withGian P. Gentile’s consideration of Viet-nam and Andrew J. Bacevich’s essayon Iraq. While Between War and Peacestrives “to avoid analyzing the prob-lems of the past through the lens ofcurrent concerns” in Iraq and Afghan-istan, both of these essays deftly chal-lenge that goal. Gentile’s demand for“clearheaded thinking about policyand strategy that aligns ways, means,and ends relative to our national inter-

ests and the potential of our enemies”applies to 1964 as much as it does now.Bacevich goes further, arguing that thePersian Gulf War did not vanquish theghosts of Vietnam, but rather was “agrotesque misunderstanding of thecontext from which the Persian GulfWar had emerged.” Furthermore, heincludes indictments of the leadershipfor failing to see the larger challengespresented by an Islamic Middle East.Although Between War and Peace suf-

fers slightly from the awkwardness offorcing so many perspectives into acommon essay structure, it is, on bal-ance, an excellent piece of policy andstrategy literature. In addition, each es-say stands on its own and can be incor-porated into any study of military his-tory or American policy-making. Thisvolume is a must-read for strategicleaders, planners and those who striveto produce a better end to America’swars.

LTC Jon Scott Logel, USA Ret., Ph.D.,a former assistant professor of historyat the United States Military Academyand veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, isan assistant professor of war gaming atthe United States Naval War College.

80 ARMY � April 2012

All In: The Education of GeneralDavid Petraeus. Paula Broadwell withVernon Loeb. The Penguin Press. 394pages; index; appendices; black-and-whitephotographs; maps; $29.95.

By LTC Edwin L. Kennedy Jr. U.S. Army retired

GEN David Petraeus’ last year inuniform found him commanding

in Afghanistan at the behest of theWhite House. Paula Broadwell andVernon Loeb have done an excellentjob of following this challenging yearthat many hope has set the conditionsnot just for a successful withdrawalbut also for longer-term stability forAfghanistan.What strikes me most about All In:

The Education of General David Petraeusis that it is not just about counterinsur-

gency (COIN), GEN Petraeus’ hall-mark. While COIN is seemingly a ma-jor focus of the narrative, the Petraeusthe authors present is a man whose ed-ucation and background are absolutelysuited to his increasing leadership re-sponsibilities. His assignments as aide-de-camp to several general officerscontributed to that education and pro-vided perspectives so necessary for hisfuture development. In addition, Petraeus’ mentors, se-

nior officers who took him under theirwings, offered sage counsel and guid-ance. As a result, GEN Petraeus did thesame for his subordinates, according tothe Army mentoring system as it wasconceived. Broadwell and Loeb cite Pe-traeus’ interventions in Afghanistan onbehalf of talented leaders he thoughtwere being stymied by the bureaucracy.He took a particular interest in those

who he thought “got it” concerningCOIN, and he did what he could to ad-vocate for them and assist their prog-ress.GEN Petraeus manages to exhibit

extraordinary emotional intelligenceunder situations that would try eventhe most patient of people. His deal-ings with Afghan leaders who werenot only resistant to change but alsosometimes openly hostile to coalitionstrategies made for a stressful year. He persevered, though, demonstrat-

ing not only extraordinary patiencebut also humility and a higher sense ofduty.Broadwell and Loeb consistently re-

turn to Petraeus’ earlier educationalexperiences and link them to his com-mand in Afghanistan. While he did nottake the COIN electives, such as Revo-lutionary Warfare, as a cadet, he started

A Portrait of Leadership

82 ARMY � April 2012

thinking about counterinsurgency earlyin his career. By the late 1980s Petraeushad completed his doctorate, writinghis dissertation on the experience of theUnited States in Vietnam. He soon developed a deep and in-

tellectual interest in U.S. counterinsur-gency successes and failures. His pub-lished articles, however, and even hisdissertation, are less about COIN thanthe application of military forces tosolve conflicts with a post-VietnamArmy. The COIN doctrine that even-tually became FM 3-24 was formu-lated during the 1990s from experi-ences and observations gained fromHaiti, the Balkans and Central Amer-ica. It is a synthesis of Petraeus’ entireeducational experience—not just a re-action to events in Operation IraqiFreedom.There are a number of other lessons

GEN Petraeus culled from his personalexperiences. He took them with him toAfghanistan in 2010, gaining a healthyrespect for the power of the press andhow it had to be reckoned with as a po-tentially positive force. His admonitionto his subordinates was: “Be the firstwith the truth.” His service in Haiti andBosnia shaped an understanding of in-teragency utility in what we now callstability operations. This understandingtranslated into the multidimensionalapproach—lines of effort in Iraq andAfghanistan—and is now embodied incurrent COIN and stability operations

doctrine. This doctrine was formalizedin 2006 when the newest counterinsur-gency manual and, subsequently, thestability operations manual, were pub-lished.

That GEN Petraeus’ year in Afghan-istan was tiring is palpable whenreading this book. The authors’ de-scription of the constant efforts re-quired to deal with the sometimes un-cooperative and difficult Afghansmade me feel the drag it must havehad on GEN Petraeus. I believe, how-ever, that their description is overlysimplistic when they say that thegreatest challenge was “the high main-

tenance required to keep the membersmarching together and … staying inthe formation.” It is a tribute to GENPetraeus that he was able to maneuverwithin the culture of corruption andother hurdles he constantly workedaround, some of which were in hisown government.While Broadwell and Loeb have

done a remarkable job of showing or-ganizational and strategic leadershipskills, I wish they had also showed thevery personal leadership character ofGEN Petraeus. They allude to it at theend of the book when they discuss the“mask of command.” Although he hasnever made a big show of it, GEN Pe-traeus has personally intervened insoldiers’ lives to help or encouragethem in their struggles. All In complements the Army’s lead-

ership doctrine by providing examplesof how interpersonal relationshipsworking across boundaries can makeeven seemingly insurmountable tasksdoable. GEN Petraeus’ talent at pro-viding direction and inspiration areworthy of being studied and emulatedat all levels of command. Kudos toBroadwell and Loeb.

LTC Edwin L. Kennedy Jr., USA Ret., isAssistant Professor at the U.S. ArmyCommand and General Staff College inthe department of Command and Lead-ership. He attended the U.S. MilitaryAcademy with GEN Petraeus.

The Great Warpath’s Influence on War TodayConquered into Liberty: Two Cen-

turies of Battles Along the GreatWarpath that Made the AmericanWay of War. Eliot A. Cohen. Free Press.432 pages; illustrations; maps; index;notes; $30.

By COL Cole C. Kingseed U.S. Army retired

Native American tribes called the200-mile corridor between New

York City and Montreal the GreatWarpath. From Colonial times throughthe War of 1812, this strategic highwayastride the Hudson River—and most

particularly Lakes George and Cham-plain—witnessed the struggle for su-premacy of the North American conti-nent among Europeans, Americans,Canadians and Native Americans.Along the water and wilderness path,what became the fledgling Americannation learned the intricacies associatedwith raising and equipping armies, de-veloping light infantry tactics, and sus-taining operations in a hostile environ-ment. Here also, the Americans firstconceived the strategy of “conqueringinto liberty” a hostile country, learninglessons that remain relevant today.Eliot A. Cohen is a scholar of strategy

and contemporary security policy. Theauthor of the prize-winning SupremeCommand: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Lead-ership in Wartime, Cohen is the RobertE. Osgood Professor of Strategic Stud-ies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Ad-vanced International Studies at JohnsHopkins University and is founding di-rector of the Philip Merrill Center forStrategic Studies. A graduate of Har-vard College, Cohen has taught at Har-vard and the U.S. Naval War College.From 2007 to 2009 he was counselor tothe U.S. Department of State, serving asSecretary Condoleezza Rice’s senior ad-visor on strategic issues.

Broad in scope and gripping in itsnarrative, Conquered into Liberty isas informative as it is captivating. Co-hen’s thesis is straightforward: The mil-itary contest along the Great Warpathpowerfully influenced American mili-tary institutions, strategic thought andmilitary culture. To support his thesis,Cohen offers a “historical explorationthrough a careful examination of se-lected battles real and, in some cases,potential.” Why focus on the Great Warpath?

Cohen posits that from the Colonialperiod through American indepen-dence, and for half a century after-ward, the military struggle for what isnow Canada was America’s centralstrategic focus. Such an approach pos-sessed more relevance during Colo-nial times and during the early stagesof the United States’ existence than itdoes in the period from the 19th cen-tury to the modern era. Cohen’s assessment of the dangers

posed by the possibility of GreatBritain tendering official recognitionto the Confederacy is particularly in-triguing. He outlines in detail Abra-ham Lincoln’s frustration as he en-dured political humiliation at thehands of Great Britain during theTrent Affair, when an American war-ship stopped a British steamer and ap-prehended two Confederate agents.Once the tide of war turned in favorof the North, Lincoln became comfort-able that “England [would] live to re-gret her inimical attitude toward us.”If anything, Cohen overplays the po-

tential of war between the UnitedStates and Great Britain over the Cana-dian question during the period 1815 to1871. By the time the Treaty of Wash-ington was signed in May 1871 to set-tle the CSS Alabama claims and othercommercial issues, British, Americanand Canadian diplomats had long re-solved to settle all international dis-putes by diplomacy. The treaty, cou-pled with the subsequent evacuationof the British garrisons in Canada,ended a phase of American militaryhistory that had lasted two-and-a-halfcenturies.How then did the Great Warpath

influence American warfighting in the

20th century? Here, Cohen makes hismost significant contribution to theconcept of the evolution of an Ameri-can way of war. According to Cohen,Anglo-American statesmen of the18th century would have soberly en-dorsed President Franklin Roosevelt’s

demand for unconditional surrenderof the Axis Powers, for they too “hadhardened on the destruction of an en-emy polity.” So, also, have today’sspecial operating forces found theirorigins in Robert Rogers’ Rangersduring the French and Indian War. Inaddition, Cohen sees the operation inwhich Navy SEALs killed Osama binLaden as nothing more than the cross-

border operations that characterizedthe Great Warpath. As for the continuing legacy of the

Great Warpath to present-day Amer-ica, Cohen reviews the campaignsalong the Hudson River Valley duringtwo-and-a-half centuries of conflictand concludes that the power of theUnited States is most effectively em-ployed by leaders at mid-level roles—“leaders … who rose to challengesthat they did not expect; who learnedtrades, including the trade of war, thatthey had not chosen; and who exhib-ited perseverance and resilience thatthey may not have known they had inthem.” Such observations are moregeneral in nature than tied to a spe-cific American way of war.Perhaps the more enduring legacy

of the multiple attempts to “conquerCanada into liberty” is extracted fromthe chapter on the abortive Americanattempt to secure Canada as a 14thcolony during the early stages of theAmerican Revolution. In years tocome, opines Cohen, “Americans inmany places—from Mexico to thePhilippines, Vietnam to Iraq—wouldbehave similarly, waging wars for lib-erty and interest, conquering othersinto freedom … with mixed motivesand uncertain outcomes.”

COL Cole C. Kingseed, USA Ret., Ph.D.,a former professor of history at the U.S.Military Academy, is a writer and con-sultant.

April 2012 � ARMY 83

A Soldier’s Sketchbook: From theFront Lines of World War II. JosephFarris. National Geographic Books. 304pages; photographs; maps; illustrations;$30.Artist Joseph Farris, best known for

his cartoons in The New Yorker maga-zine (his work has also appeared inmany other publications, includingARMY Magazine), has written a bookabout his experiences as a soldier dur-ing World War II. The greater part of ASoldier’s Sketchbook: From the Front Linesof World War II is made up of lettersFarris wrote to his family while he wasin the Army, interspersed with the au-thor’s reminiscences of the era. Thebook is amply illustrated with repro-ductions of Farris’ sketches, watercol-ors and photographs as well as archivalphotos, maps and posters that place hisstory in a broader historical context.Farris was born in 1924 in Newark,

N.J. He spent his school age years inDanbury, Conn., where his parentsowned the Danbury Confectionery, asmall store operated by the entire fam-ily. Farris, who dreamed of becomingan artist, displayed his drawings ofpopular comic strip characters in asmall room in the back of the shop. Atthe age of 12 or 13, he responded to anad in a local newspaper for free artlessons given by some New Yorker car-toonists, most notably Richard Taylor.“Th[at] decision probably determinedthe direction my life would take,”writes Farris.

Following high school graduation(with honors) in 1942, Farris was draftedinto the Army in 1943 and, after train-ing, assigned to the Infantry at FortBragg, N.C. On October 6, 1944, men of the 100th

Infantry Division—Farris among them—boarded the USS General W.H. Gor-don and disembarked 14 days later atMarseilles, on the southern coast ofFrance. Assigned to the 398th InfantryRegiment, 3rd Battalion, Company M,a heavy machine-gun squad, Farristraveled north to the front lines to re-lieve the 45th Division in the VosgesMountains. He soon had his first en-

counter with enemy fire, in which hissquad leader was killed in action.“Our morale couldn’t have droppedany lower on that fateful day,” hewrites. Soon after, Farris received hisCombat Infantryman’s Badge: “Of allmy decorations,” he writes, “I’m mostproud of this one.”

In spite of the miserable condi-tions—cold and rainy weather, muddyfoxholes, lack of sleep, the death of hiscomrades—Farris’ letters home weremostly upbeat, as he didn’t want hisfamily to worry about him. In a letterwritten the day after the death of hissquad leader he wrote, “Today was asuper day as days over here go. I re-ceived three of your swell packages,and boy they hit the spot.” He alsohad to contend with Army censorship,which prohibited him from revealingsensitive information such as troopmovements. Farris fills in the gaps forthe reader with his own commentaryand excerpts from his company’s offi-cial morning reports (which he se-cretly copied in their entirety at thewar’s end).In March 1945, the 3rd Battalion

captured the town of Bitche, on theMaginot Line, and was awarded thePresidential Unit Citation for its ac-tion. Shortly thereafter, the divisioncrossed the Rhine River into Germany.While heavy fighting ensued alongthe Neckar River, Farris was on fur-lough in the town of Nancy, France.After the surrender of Germany in

May 1945, Farris worried that he andhis fellow soldiers would be sent tofight in the Pacific Theater. “We hadsurvived the war in the European The-ater of operations and the odds werestrongly against our surviving the in-vasion of Japan too,” he writes. Againhe was spared further combat, and inAugust he enrolled in an eight-weekprogram at the Biarritz Army Univer-sity, where he had his first formal train-ing in art. Once the Japanese officiallysurrendered in September, Farris’ mainpreoccupation was returning home. Fi-nally, on January 31, 1946, he set sailfor the United States from Bremer-haven, Germany. He was honorablydischarged from the Army at Fort Dix,N.J., on February 22, having attainedthe rank of staff sergeant.Farris writes that “World War II was

an extraordinary experience and adefining moment” in his life. Throughboth words and pictures in A Soldier’sSketchbook, Farris brings his wartimeexperience to life in vivid detail.

—Joe Broderick

84 ARMY � April 2012

Varied Fare

Barracks,Fort Bragg,N.C., 1944

Joseph Farris

Defeat and Triumph: The Story of aControversial Allied Invasion andFrench Rebirth. Stephen Sussna. Xlib-ris Corp. 719 pages; notes; appendices;bibliography; maps; black-and-whitephotographs. $24.64.Operation Anvil (later called Opera-

tion Dragoon), the Allied invasion ofsouthern France on August 15, 1944,was always controversial. Churchillopposed it; Roosevelt and Eisenhowerwere for it. The operation succeeded inits goal of liberating most of France inabout a month. Although it was ahighly ambitious, large-scale opera-tion, it has always been overshadowedby the even more ambitious OperationOverlord, the Normandy landings,which occurred two months earlier.Stephen Sussna, a sailor on LST

(landing ship, tank) 1012 during Oper-ation Dragoon, tries to provide an en-cyclopedia on the subject. The book isan exhaustive examination of every as-pect of the landings—individual narra-tive, operational and tactical details,and the strategic context. The maps,charts and information culled from un-

published interviews, letters and di-aries of American, British, French andGerman participants offer most of thedetails needed to understand what

went on. Firsthand accounts are excit-ing; however, for a fast-moving narra-tive, readers may look elsewhere.The author cites historian Alan Wilts’

numbers regarding the size of the oper-

ation: 60,150 initial landing forces; 10combat divisions; 250,000 troops; 2,250ships and landing craft; and 4,056 air-craft.Sussna succeeds in presenting a com-

prehensive sense of the operation andits consequences. He notes that GENGeorge C. Marshall credited the land-ings of the U.S. Seventh Army underLTG Alexander M. Patch as greatlycontributing to the deterioration of theGerman army in France. Sussna alsoobserves that naval historian SamuelE. Morison considered Operation Dra-goon “the nearly faultless large-scaleamphibious operation of World War II.”Although some recognition of the

Allied troops of Operation Dragoonand of LTG Jacob L. Devers, who wasdeputy supreme allied commander,Mediterranean and later U.S. 6th ArmyGroup commander, occurred in Au-gust 2010 at the World War II Memor-ial in Washington, D.C., the operationis still known as the Forgotten D-Day.Those who wish to learn more about

it can dip into this thorough referencebook.

April 2012 � ARMY 85

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