The American army between world wars after World War I had virtually disintegrated. It was a very small force, given largely to… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“Captain Evelyn Waugh of the British Army wrote of the Stuka, “Like all things German, it is very efficient and goes on… — Rick Atkinson British army Copy Share Image
“I could hear them yell and laugh each time and there was nothing I could do about it…. I saw them do… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
Almost everything about American society is affected by World War II: our feelings about race; our feelings about gender and the empowerment… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“Brooke’s deputy, General Sir John Kennedy, observed of Churchill: “He is difficult enough when things are going badly, more difficult when nothing… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“All the confusion that characterized the cargo loading now attended the convergence of 34,000 soldiers on Hampton Roads. Troop trains with blinds… — Rick Atkinson Soldiers Copy Share Image
“Tanks beached at X and Z were to race inland before dawn in a pincer movement to help capture two airfields south… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“To his brother Edgar he confided, “I suffer from the usual difficulty that besets the higher commander—things can be ordered and started,… — Rick Atkinson Brother Copy Share Image
That was a pretty fine Army that we had in 1965. By 1973, it was in tatters. It was a disgrace to… — Rick Atkinson Army Copy Share Image
“Like any army moving from war to peace, this Army was entering a period in which it would search high and low… — Rick Atkinson Peace Copy Share Image
“Even Colonel Lang, watching the Americans from the other side of Djebel Naemia, had been surprised by their timid initial approach to… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“Allen left the academy, graduated from Catholic University, and took a commission in 1912. Wounded at Saint-Mihiel in 1918 and carried from… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“Terry Allen and a larger portion of his 1st Division descended on Oran from the sandstone hills above St. Cloud, a key… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“TWENTY-SEVEN acres of headstones fill the American military cemetery at Carthage, Tunisia. There are no obelisks, no tombs, no ostentatious monuments, just… — Rick Atkinson American military Copy Share Image
“In contemplating who should command the Army’s multiplying regiments and divisions, Marshall and his training chief, Lesley J. McNair, kept a list… — Rick Atkinson American military Copy Share Image
“TWO hundred and thirty nautical miles southeast of Gibraltar, Oran perched above the sea, a splinter of Europe cast onto the African… — Rick Atkinson Red wine Copy Share Image
“Derrien had issued his battle cry, he annulled it by order of Vichy. “November 8, we fight everybody,” he wrote privately. “November… — Rick Atkinson Battle cry Copy Share Image
“In the first half of 1944, battle casualty rates for every 1,000 bomber crewmen serving six months in combat included 712 killed… — Rick Atkinson Japanese Copy Share Image
“Some fired, others balked. Decanted onto a strange, dark shore, many men feared shooting their own. The hillsides hissed with the night’s… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“On October 14, Patton sent identical letters to all his senior commanders: “If you don’t succeed, I don’t want to see you… — Rick Atkinson Defeat Copy Share Image
I was born in Munich, and my father was stationed in Salzburg. For the first three years of my life, I lived… — Rick Atkinson American army Copy Share Image
The spring of 1942 was given over to a very impassioned, strategic debate about where we should first attack in counterpunching against… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“an infantry captain addressed his men: “We do not pray for victory, nor even for our individual safety. But we pray for… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“more than 300 other ships bound for Algeria steamed from anchorages on the Clyde and along England’s west coast. For all these… — Rick Atkinson West coast Copy Share Image
“Sergeant Samuel Allen, Jr., a former college student who had led his own swing band in the palmy days of peace, tried… — Rick Atkinson College student Copy Share Image
“A popular aphorism soon circulated among frontline troops: “Never were so few commanded by so many from so far.” Asked why the… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
There were almost 11,000 American soldiers killed in Germany in April of 1945, the last full month of the war. That's almost… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“A soldier would snake his way painfully through rocks and rubble to set up a light machine gun, raise his head cautiously… — Rick Atkinson Computers Copy Share Image
I conduct very few interviews with veterans. The contemporaneous, or near-contemporaneous, record for WWII is so spectacularly deep that latter-day recollections are… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
Hitler had a police state of the first order. And those who showed any sign of being weak-kneed faced prison or often… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“A soldier doesn’t fight to save suffering humanity or any other nonsense. He fights to prove that his unit is the best… — Rick Atkinson Peace Copy Share Image
“If you don’t succeed, I don’t want to see you alive,” he advised. “I see no point in surviving defeat, and I… — Rick Atkinson Defeat Copy Share Image
In searching for a rationale to go to war, Bush settled on the notion of Saddam as an incarnation of evil, basically,… — Rick Atkinson Acting Copy Share Image
There is something within our biological structure that screams out and says it is morally wrong for the old to outlive the… — Rick Atkinson Life Copy Share Image
There are a number of World War II historians I admire: Cornelius Ryan, Mark Stoler, Antony Beevor, to name a few. As… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“In less than three years he would be the most celebrated American battle captain of the twentieth century, a man whose name—like… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
“Shortly after sunset on November 5, the convoy began to swing east, past the Pillars of Hercules. Soon the fleet would split… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
American audiences tend to underappreciate the British, but 240 years ago they were us: They were the most powerful nation on Earth.… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
It's my belief that by demonizing Saddam, by raising the stakes in this war to the point where we're talking about a… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
I was with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq, really in the middle of nowhere, about 80 miles south of Baghdad. And… — Rick Atkinson Copy Share Image
