The Day of Battle
The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944
By: Rick Atkinson
Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
Series: The Liberation Trilogy, Book 2
Length: 32 hrs and 41 mins

Victorious in the crimson gore of North Africa, the Allied Army moves on to the “Soft Underbelly” of the Third Reich. The campaigns in Sicily and Italy were the sensible next step in the war. Italy did not prove to be the soft and easy entry into the lands of the Third Reich. The true opponent faced by the strategist would mountainous terrain of the Apennines promenading the length of the central peninsula. Progress for ultimate victory in the overall war was not made on the inland campaign but rather came at the interface between the domains of Zeus and Poseidon.

A significant benefit of the Italian campaign was in the use and misuse of amphibious landings. Lessons learned transcended rank as squad leaders and strategists both garnered knowledge in the forthcoming fray. Italy also gave the opportunity to refine the tools and methods that were found to be successful in North Africa. This both showed their further scalability and their limitations. Inherently saving lives in the greatest amphibious attack and subsequent battles of Normandy and France.

Personal thoughts:
Much of the characters that I am aware of from WWII did not feature as much as I expected in the North African Campaign. While some individuals were mentioned, it was not until the Italian campaign that many of these individuals began to feature. Indeed it seems that those who had success in Italy generally went on to success in France and beyond. This demonstrated the holes in my knowledge made by simply consuming popular historical events of WWII focusing mainly on the landings in Normandy and the following battles in Northern France. Which are not to be diminished as they are the one part of the hammer that destroyed the Third Reich. But they leave out the all-important back story that makes that army a great army. For it as a Phoenix rising from the ashes of North Africa that the army destined to conquer arose. Italy was that army’s training ground.