And reading back through what ive written in the morning and preparing for the next days writing, which consists of taking that segment of the outline and further refining it and then i read it one last time after dinner and not. I put it away and i usually dont mess with it again until we are in the final editing of the book. The next and you know youve a book. Thats it. We are out of time. Thank you so much. [applause] host the guns at last light the war in western europe 19441945 was the third of the trilogy. You can find the phone numbers on the screen. If youd like to talk with mr. Atkinson about his trilogy, hell be joining us in about two minutes. 2025853890 if you live in the eastern and central zone. Sub one for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. If you can get through on the phone lines, you can send a treat. booktv is her twitter handle. For make a comment on her face but page, facebook. Com put tv. Thisll be the final event from this Years National book festival in washington d. C. This is the 13th annual began in 2001. Its been held on the ball every year since that first year would have installed on the capitol grounds. We are pleased we were able to cover both days live. Everything is seen today, youve been watching all day while all briere this evening at 1 00 a. M. Eastern time in the overnight. Youll be able to see the whole thing. Go ahead and dialin for Rick Atkinson. Hubby over here in a minute. In the meantime, we will take a call from fred and Plymouth Meeting pennsylvania. Thanks for holding. Whats your question for Rick Atkinson . Caller more of an assessment. My feeling is the great tragedy of world war ii was the entire Italian Campaign, totally unnecessary huge loss of life. I was wondering mr. Atkinsons assessment of mark clark in the way he conducted that campaign. Thats basically it. Host did you read the day of battle, by the way . Guest now, i read the last book, the third book. Host the day of battle he spends quite a bit of time on mark clark in the Italian Campaign. Once mr. Atkinson gets over here, we will ask him about that. Next call is gail in san antonio. Caller yes, sir. The question is, why didnt hitler crossed the channel into england . And if he had done so, with the english have used gas . Host okay, well ask that question as well. 2025853890 in the eastern and central time zones. 2025853891 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. We are joined now by Rick Atkinson hes been listening to in the history and biography tent. Thank you for being with us. Fred in pennsylvania called a minute ago and he wondered about the Italian Campaign. He thought that was the biggest disaster of the war and specifically about mark clark, general clark. I told him that in the day of battle you spend quite a bit of time on mark clark. If you would, recount. Guest mark clark has been hit hard by many historians. Im a generous to him than most. It is that he actually is a pretty capable battle commander among other things. Theres 23,000 soldiers killed in italy in world war ii and not every commander is cut out to take those casualties and be able to sustain the kind of emotional weight that ratings. Clark can do it. You cant blame clark for being in italy. Hes there because he is told to be there. The Italian Campaign make sense if you want air bases in southern italy. Once you get those, which we do in the early fall of 1944, it makes less sense as you slowly away at the mountain saw the way until may 1945. It will be argued about as honest people are reading about world war ii. Hosts are we another call from gail in san antonio. Why didnt hitler crossed the English Channel when he had the opportunity . Or if he did have the opportunity and if so what are you finished off in one . Guest well, he wanted to. He had drawn careful plans for the invasion of england. One thing in particular stopped him and that was he never had air superiority. He knew even though the English Channel is not wide, that if you do not control the air, if in fact the british spitfires that prevailed in britain in 1940 have free access to your vision for his coming by to see that end in disaster. Youve got to have air protection to mount amphibious operation. It stopped him from launching operations the lion. The second part of the question . Host what you finished up england . Guest if he managed to get across the English Channel, you have to believe things wouldve gone very badly. The British Isles are pretty big. 800 miles south to north. Their wouldve been a Guerrilla Campaign as some sort certainly. Its hard to imagine the british wouldve been able to prevail had he gotten his forces of crossing the channel. Host Rick Atkinson, total deaths in world war ii . Guest about 60 million. Host total cost . Guest to the United States alone, if you calculate in 2012, it is about 4 trillion. Now to the entire world, i dont know. I dont have that anybody would know. Host next call for Rick Atkinson comes from herb in weatherford, texas. You are on booktv on cspan2 this author Rick Atkinson. Caller yes, sir, an honor to talk to you. I just finished reading the books back to back to back. A little postscript on dealing with my father. My father fought in world war ii and battle of the bulge and he received the bronze star and purple heart in the battle of the bulge. You know, the calls are fathers generation the greatest generation. I. T. Without my father. You are talking about the draft. My father was the youngest of 15 and quit school in the fifth grade and went to work. Was drafted in the army in 18, was blind in one eye. Went to world war ii, sent his paycheck home to his mother and supported the family. My mother was in five years to marry him. I understand why now. She was able he was 60 to 70 disability, walked with a slight bump, which you would not notice. His whole life, would never even get a Handicapped Parking sticker. He came back from that war. I only saw my father cried three times in his life. Thats when his mother died and right before he died. The other time, my mother said mr. And the gulf war sitting there watching it on tv. She looked over at him and tears were coming down his cheeks. I know now from reading the books where he went back in his life to that war experience. I just want you to know that your book is absolutely on the mark with so many things. Ive read several books, but i kind of lucked upon yours. Ill end with this. I have a question. You deal with the european war. I am about to get into the japanese side of it, which i dont know much about. Do you have any suggestions for reading on that . Ill let you go. Guest thank you for your question and thank you for the comment about your father. Sounds like a mixture of every man. Theres a lot of good stuff out there about the pacific were. My friend Richard Frank is a very fine historian working on a trilogy about the war in the pacific. Max hastings writes well about the pacific. If you look on my website, liberation trilogy. Com, you will see a short essay on suggested reading and theres reading they are about the global war beyond the war in europe. Host Rick Atkinson, we spent three hours 50 midmay when the guns at last light the war in western europe 19441945 came out. We has to then, are you working on a specific trilogy . Guest peter, im not. I decided some time ago that i wasnt going to do the pacific. 15 years is long enough on world war ii. And so ive begun working on another trilogy, but it on the American Revolution. It has had my its captured my imagination since i was a boy as it has for many of us. Ive been added in earnest for about three and ive got a long way to go. Its a whole different set of archives among other things. A different century needless to say. Idc presents this. The beginning of the army have read about in world war ii, i see parallels between washington and eisenhower that are very surprising to me sometimes. They have more in common then they dont have in common. So thats what im doing. Its another long project that will take me probably for five years to do. Host bought in dallas, good afternoon. Caller hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my call. You answered one of the questions i have just now, so ill substitute another. How did she go about deciding what to leave out . Is there something youve left out that you now wish you could put in . If roosevelt to churchville ever finally determine are realized there was nothing soft about the underbelly of europe from the mediterranean . Guest well, to answer the last question first, churchville never acknowledged that the Italian Campaign and his approach to try and defeat germany they come in the mediterranean was fundamentally bankrupt by the time i get to 1944, 1945. He was not the sort of guy to make apologies. He believed what he believed. So we find churchville in the late 1944 are still arguing for the mediterranean strategy. He tries to persuade first eisenhower, then roosevelt to have been in the invasion of Southern France coach is going to take this on august 15. The troops are in the ship and churchill is dull hammering away at this. He wants a landing to go through the head of the asiatic and go through the topographical feature known as the ljubljana gap, kind of a backdoor to vienna. Eisenhower said im not going to rent a gap i cant pronounce. So churchill never acknowledged that this was not the proper course. Do i regret leaving things out and how do i decide what to leave out . Well, deciding what to leave out is part of the narrative art as much as deciding what to put in. Obviously a subject as enormous as world war ii, many, many volumes have been written about it and will be but about it. Trying to find the sweet spot of the narrative account of an individual episode, trying to find the emotional sweet spot, trying to find the sweet thought of individual characters is all part of what writers try to do. You know, sure, there are things i wish there was room even in a very big but to have been able to put and, but nothing i lose sleep about. Host here is the last volume in the liberation trilogy, the guns at last light the war in western europe 19441945. George is calling from norwalk, ohio. Georgia, you are on with Rick Atkinson. Are you with us . Caller just, i am calling to find out what source you use [inaudible] host you know what, i apologize. I didnt catch what she said. Guest i heard carl timmerman. Host we are going to move on to enact in hayward, california. Good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. Mr. Atkins and, i first heard about you just recently on george wills blog and i started with the first book, an army at dawn. I just want to say how much i appreciate what a great writer you are, to specifically and clearly give the overall great picture and done with care or an personalities, the drama of the situation. Guest thank you. Thank you, very much. Host is that it . Any question . Caller that they appeared no question. Host on her face but, michael post, with a twoyear mr. Atkinsons take on a broad front versus the single full press debate. Does he think eisenhowers strategy was the most expedient way to win the war . Or with a single bow thruster that the possibility of shortening the war related to this, did eisenhower make a mistake not trained to take berlin . Guest there is a lot there. I will try to be sustained. That issue is hotly debated at the time. It is hotly debated in the years after the war did 70 years later still hotly debated. Eisenhower in brief believed that, in that the german right in a fashion where you had major thrust here and a major thrust here was the best way to keep the germans off balance and to keep them moving. That they would have to ship their forces back and forth and that this would cause them to use fuel. This is the achilles heel of the third reich. They were running out of fuel. Eisenhower knew this. Putting all of your forces and one powerful thrust through Northern Europe into north or germany was the more sensible way to do it. They argued about it interminably for months. Eisenhower having the privilege of being the Supreme Commander had the last word. His strategic, operational approach is the way in fact that the war played out. My feeling is that eisenhower was correct. There was enough evidence to suggest that had montgomery single thrust been followed, the germans could possibly have blunted that single thrust, that spearhead. They couldve attacked it from the flanks. It would have been problematic if he didnt have an alternative. He didnt have the other face to publishers. Related to that very briefly, berlin, eisenhower decided in march 1945 for months and months segued are going to go to berlin, that that is the object of the outlined army coming from the west. He changed his mind. The reason he changed his mind as the russians had 2 million soldiers poised outside of berlin. They had been on the order river in january 1945, only 40 miles from berlin. He knew it was going to be an undertaking to capture berlin. He came to the conclusion that it made more sense to hang all his forces further south and to cut the rate in half to prevent the germans from reinforcing the alps and having what was known as the National GuerrillaWarfare Campaign operating from the alps. My feeling is this is exactly the right decision, but going to berlin and they wouldnt have beaten russians there. It would have been pointless. Hes wrong about the intelligence was erroneous. Germans didnt have the capacity to mount the guerrilla Warfare Campaign. But in fact, eisenhower did breaking. Host was there ever is trying truly Rick Atkinson they couldve won this war . Guest i think you can argue that after theyve been invading the soviet union in june 1941 but the handwriting is on the wall. Theres a lot of blood that needs to be shed before you sit back and give me. It is certainly true the germans initially are successful in the soviet union. It is fighting an war against a very powerful ad are scary. My feeling is after 1943, the worst loss for germany. There are many german generals and german politicians to recognize that all of the. Hitler is not the kind of guy to acknowledge that these laws a world war was going to drag on until 1945. Host michael in seattle, thank you for holding on. You were on with author trent reappeared caller thank you very much. Your books are terrific mr. Atkinson. My father was a man at who volunteered in december 1941. He was a frontline medic. I would like your comments about the medical care that our soldiers received in europe. What was that like . What could be done . What were we not able to do . Any now, where did they take them to after that moved away from the front lines . Thank you again for your time. Looks are terrific. Guest thematics are an important part of the war. There are a lot of American Veterans alive today because of mannix and American Veterans of world war ii who survived the water and went on to have life after world war ii because of mannix who are very much as your father was in the line of fire. The next iraq are crawling around basically protected by an armband with a red cross on it. The medical letter that the United States, particularly in the Second World War is pretty extraordinary. They discovered a lot of things that help save lives. There were discoveries like penicillin that were absolutely indispensable to preventing carnage from being even worse. There were many men who date because the pen of ellen and the ability to convert that discovery by british scientists into an industrial strength operation whether its penicillin available ultimately by the time. The discovery of things like the import games of plasma and more and how would mix them together. These are battlefield, lessons learned, learned the hard way frequently that are absolutely indispensable. As to your question of what happened to a soldier when he was wounded, there was a whole system of stations and hospitals depended how badly she was hurt, dependent on the position of the lines in that one. Essentially the effort was to stabilize them hasnt changed much these days 70 years later he had stabilized them. Youve got the golden hour if you can get the bleeding stopped and if you can do other things that prevent the downward spiral that leads to death. And then you get them to the first level of care, where there are physicians and can do more emergency help in ultimately get them into a bigger hospital. So it was an Extraordinary Part of the logistical effort of the war and the medics are very much at the point of the spear. Host conference sylvester, georgia. John tv. Caller i have a quick question. I read in a previous book another author that roosevelt and churchill worried that stalin would take the soviet union out of the were before concluded in europe and find a peace treaty with germany like they did during the bolshevik revolution. But that it mattered on the western front in the outcome of the war . Guest yes, there was anxiety about that and thats one of the reasons roosevelt in particular was so eager to get the American Army into the war in 1942. Even if it meant going to a place that seemed as improbable as north africa. Roosevelt knew if you could keep the soviets bleeding for the allied cause that that was that much less leading the american soldiers had to do. Theres a certain cynicism to it, but israel politics. It was a clear eyed view by president roosevelt that the soviets were the most important component in the western in the alliance generally in defeating the germans. The soviets did much of the dying. They did most of the killing in the soviets were absolutely indispensable. Its hard to imagine the british and americans winning the war without soviet participation. There were great efforts taken to ensure that stalin did not do what he had done previously and that was to make a separate piece of sort with hitler, which was broken in the nation and the soviet union in june 1941. There is precedent for that kind of soviet decisionmaking. And so roosevelt was always very, very attentive to soviet demands. He had a long correspondence with stalin. He recognizes stalin was a mass murderer among other things, but also recognize that as he put it in times of trouble its permissible to cross the bridge and the company of the devil. His handling of the soviet union, his insurer chose was a deployed diplomacy. Host how many deaths are soviet . Guest about 26 million. Host next call, jim and jim and sunset, louisiana. Theyre attacking with author Rick Atkinson about liberation trilogy on world war ii. Caller mr. Atkinson, wonderful, wonderful presentation. I loved it. I was born in paris, france in 1945. By mother was french. My dad was american. She told me a lot of stories about the German Occupation and the liberation ethic came in. She was telling me the most the worst part for her was being put in a position of being ready to come to america to be with my father. She said some thing about ships and all parts of europe coming over. Did you do any research or run across anything in your book search is for this type of thing . She said is very true mattock for her. Guest the short answer is i did spend much time looking at the postwar aspects, in putting the travels of war brides. I think there are 50,000 of them in england, with a lot of little angloamericans who had been born out of unions between american soldiers and british girls. So i dont know much about that. I do know that there was great concern that first of all the British Government was concerned. Im talking about the breadth now, not the french, were concerned that there were so many british women who are impregnated by american soldiers that there is a certified site treaty signed in english laws of bastardy invoked and there is a support scale set up. The soldier had to agree to pay i think it was a pound a month until the little angloamericans was 14 years old. With the french, there was an interesting issue particularly in normandy with american soldiers behaving badly around frenchwomen. The french were so concerned. This includes general de gaulle with whom we had fought in italy and he was essentially chief of staff of the french military, the day wrote several very tart letters to eisenhower, telling him frenchwomen could not go out of their houses in normandy at night without being accompanied by french men because they were being accosted by american soldiers. Eisenhower took it very seriously. He hang several perpetrators and cracked down hard on it because he recognized among other things that this is bad behavior and thus undercuts everything had been trying to do in trying to present himself as liberators. I know more about that aspect of the relationship with the french french frenchwomen in particular than i do about the postwar aspects of it. I read about it actually. Host a few minutes left. Paul and indianapolis. Go ahead with your comment. Caller i just picked up your book. Looking forward to it. Most of my reading in the last 40 years has been the appearance of marlboro to the poets and which would include the American Revolution that youre just not getting into. Most of your reporting, your writing has been in the modern era of warfare, where you now go back injury. With the experience of battle is totally different paper you expect as many casualties one day as would come, for example come the french army last month working on one day than the american lost in the entire campaign. When airing do you think you have to do some readjustment to keep you the experience of battle . Guest thats a good question and i cant answer it yet. But im thinking about it. Im thinking about precisely that. I do think that there is some adjustment that is necessary. But i also think war is war. Ngtons army in 1776 the weather isnt sent Dwight Eisenhowers army in 1944 or whether hes an army in afghanistan. Today there are certain salient in certain eternal verities of soldiering life. Certainly havent just seen to my research for the American Revolution. Im adjusting to all different sorts of things. Artillery doesnt play a very large role unlike 20th century war. Their small battles for the most part. Although ultimately with 25,000 americans killed in action in the American Revolution, second only to the civil war in tes it second only to the civil war in terms of the number of americans killed in action in a population of 3 million. So thats a good question and im thinking about it. I appreciate it. Roi in portland, oregon. Good afternoon. Caller im interested in world war ii. Its written on an. Nick and magic and the only thing was this paragraph is said neither the germans nor the japanese were able to make meaningful headway towards solutions of the sigma machine. Can you tell me anything about the sigma machine . I had never heard of it before terry at. I cant tell you much about it as im not really a signals historian. The germans kept changing their codes. They practice reasonably good operational security. They were aware that codebreaking had come a long ways. They were not aware it had come as far as it had with the abilities of the british in particular and the amazing efforts going on in leslie park north of london to crack the german codes, to intercept the radio transmissions, to take those codes using the enigma machines that coded and ultimately that the british decoded those messages and to keep all of that secret. That secret of all threat as it was called remain secret until 1974. It was considered the deepest secret of the war and so consequently the germans had no idea that their mail was being read essentially. It was a great advantage as you can imagine for the western allies. You know when it came out in 1974 historians said will we have to rewrite the history of the war . This is such a big deal and it turns out now. You find very few instances where really had a tactical or Operational Impact on the war. It allowed the americans and british to have a larger strategic sense of what was happening with the germans. It didnt tip us off for example on the attack of the bulge and of course they did not transmit those orders and communications via radio. So its a very interesting part of the war. Host danny and rainbow texas, we have one minute left. Caller yes, i was interested that you said the northern part of the Italian Campaign was more or less uses uses useless and that was pretty much my fathers contribution. Guest i did not say useless. I didnt say that danny. Get. Caller you said it was a very small value. Guest i didnt say that either. It was a culdesac of swords and every soldier who for that felt that. They can continue to campaign in italy was to tie up as many germans in italy so they cannot oppose the forces landing in italy. There were more 204 divisions otherwise there was a good possibility that any of those if not all of those we been in normandy on june 6, 1944 so i would never say it was useless. I would say was heartbreaking. Theres no doubt about that. Host Rick Parkinson you begin an army of dawn, before the war. How big was the u. S. Army in 1944 . Guest the u. S. Army had about 190,000 in 1938 and 39. It was a puny little thing, poorly outfitted. By 1945, how big is the army . The army alone is 8. 4 million. There were 16 million in uniform in a country of 130 million. You can see its a 40 fourfold increase in the size of our army in five years basically. Host Rick Atkinson is the author of the liberation trilogm and heres the latest. It just came out in may. The guns of last light, a Rick Atkinson as always we appreciate your time. Up next on booktv after words with guest vincent bzdek. The president ial historian explores rose