Thanks for this book review, I just got my copy of Turning the Tide in the mail yesterday so, I haven't finished reading it yet (I admit I spent most of the day writing a new post on my rants. So far I love Turning the Tide for anyone interested in WW2 this is also a real page turner. As stated in the Foreword there wasn't a whole lot of…
Thanks for this book review, I just got my copy of Turning the Tide in the mail yesterday so, I haven't finished reading it yet (I admit I spent most of the day writing a new post on my rants. So far I love Turning the Tide for anyone interested in WW2 this is also a real page turner. As stated in the Foreword there wasn't a whole lot of reporting about the Mediterranean front during the war. But my Uncle Archie (my Dad's younger brother) was a medic who's hospital boat was sunk in the Mediterranean - fortunately Uncle Archie escaped and made in home in 1945 alive and only somewhat disoriented. So thank you Tom for this really fascinating report on what was going on from the American point of view. My uncle was a medic in the Royal Canadian Army.
I didn't know about (or had forgotten about) the Allied landings in France. Most of what I had learned about was Italy, especially the events resulting in the destruction of Monte Cassino. Serendipitously, in August 1994, I was in a southern France hill town liberated by Allied troops in August 1944. Sadly, I had train and plane reservations so had to leave just a few days before the celebrations.
I've traveled several times in southern France, particularly enjoy the hill towns inland from the Cote d'Azur. In talking with locals who lived through the Nazi occupation and, to a person, they still express their deep appreciation of the United States liberating them from German occupation - this despite the destruction that Allied bombardments wreaked on their historical towns. One such included a medieval bridge across a gorge that had been a critical element of the salt trade from Italy to western Europe. Just a short distance from the reconstructed bridge, our hotelier held forth on how much he admires the U.S., and there's a 3' x 5' etched stone tablet on the adjacent modern bridge recounting the history and thanks for liberation. Every town we visited, we strolled the cemetery and viewed the monuments erected to their own, members of the resistance executed by the Germans. As the saying goes, travel is so educational!
What really made us welcome was the Marshall plan. After WW1 the allied forces shrugged and said let Germany pay for your rebuilding. That worked well, the Germans were flat broke, and instead of 'reparations' they graced us with fascism, Adolf Hitler and mass murder of Jews, Slavs, mentally deficient and physically handicapped.
After WW2, under the Marshall Plan, named after our General George C Marshall where by America, Canada and others supplied materials and labor to help rebuild Europe, including Western Germany (Eastern Germany was under Russian occupation until the fall of the Berlin Wall
I've no doubt that all you write is true but the emphasis in my conversations, and on the 3'x5' stone plaque, was on the liberation from German occupation by Allied troops.
Thanks for this book review, I just got my copy of Turning the Tide in the mail yesterday so, I haven't finished reading it yet (I admit I spent most of the day writing a new post on my rants. So far I love Turning the Tide for anyone interested in WW2 this is also a real page turner. As stated in the Foreword there wasn't a whole lot of reporting about the Mediterranean front during the war. But my Uncle Archie (my Dad's younger brother) was a medic who's hospital boat was sunk in the Mediterranean - fortunately Uncle Archie escaped and made in home in 1945 alive and only somewhat disoriented. So thank you Tom for this really fascinating report on what was going on from the American point of view. My uncle was a medic in the Royal Canadian Army.
I didn't know about (or had forgotten about) the Allied landings in France. Most of what I had learned about was Italy, especially the events resulting in the destruction of Monte Cassino. Serendipitously, in August 1994, I was in a southern France hill town liberated by Allied troops in August 1944. Sadly, I had train and plane reservations so had to leave just a few days before the celebrations.
I've traveled several times in southern France, particularly enjoy the hill towns inland from the Cote d'Azur. In talking with locals who lived through the Nazi occupation and, to a person, they still express their deep appreciation of the United States liberating them from German occupation - this despite the destruction that Allied bombardments wreaked on their historical towns. One such included a medieval bridge across a gorge that had been a critical element of the salt trade from Italy to western Europe. Just a short distance from the reconstructed bridge, our hotelier held forth on how much he admires the U.S., and there's a 3' x 5' etched stone tablet on the adjacent modern bridge recounting the history and thanks for liberation. Every town we visited, we strolled the cemetery and viewed the monuments erected to their own, members of the resistance executed by the Germans. As the saying goes, travel is so educational!
What really made us welcome was the Marshall plan. After WW1 the allied forces shrugged and said let Germany pay for your rebuilding. That worked well, the Germans were flat broke, and instead of 'reparations' they graced us with fascism, Adolf Hitler and mass murder of Jews, Slavs, mentally deficient and physically handicapped.
After WW2, under the Marshall Plan, named after our General George C Marshall where by America, Canada and others supplied materials and labor to help rebuild Europe, including Western Germany (Eastern Germany was under Russian occupation until the fall of the Berlin Wall
I've no doubt that all you write is true but the emphasis in my conversations, and on the 3'x5' stone plaque, was on the liberation from German occupation by Allied troops.
I realize that Judith, my information was intended as additional and I do appreciate your original post.
I always appreciate a history lesson.